Breaking news

[whisky-dave]

The fact that they are building on flood plains proves global warming exists $-D

[NY]

I'm surprised, given the modern trend to blame all climate change on human activity, that people haven't tried to claim that the big freeze on the Thames in the 1800s was caused people people all deciding not to light their fires or run steam trains for the preceding few years :-)

Climate change happens: it is incontrovertibly warmer now than it was in the

1800s, given that the Thames doesn't freeze over. But I disagree that this is part of a relentless irreversible trend or that it is entirely/mainly caused by human activity, rather than as a result of natural cycles. *Correlation* between increased burning of fossil fuels and increased air temperatures/ reduced area of North Pole doesn't necessarily imply *cause*. Indeed there could even be reverse cause: increased air temperatures (caused by natural events outside of our control) may lead to people travelling more and to them burning more fuel to generate power for their air conditioning. And of course if it's exceptionally cold, then there will be negative correlation: more people burn fuel to heat their houses.

Sadly a lot of people seem to work on the "stand to reason, doesn't it" level of "proof", where they find some evidence of correlation that supports their pet theory that they want to be true.

[charles]

You can, I understand, draw a straight line graph with the rise in crime since WW2 and the number of refrigerators in domestic ownership up to about

1960. Was the crime casued by fridges?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Worse, the correlation is weak and breaking down as each year passes anyway.

Indeed there could even be reverse cause:

There is pretty firm evidence that rising temperatures raise CO2 levels by outgassing from the sea.

If CO2 then also raised temperatures faster than some other negative feedback could cope, we would have gone into runaway global warming millennia ago.

Ergo, there must exist some overall negative feedback term far far greater than the effect of CO2 ...

Confirmation bias.

Just as 'Piltdown Man' was *constructed* to *exactly* fit the prejudices of the time, so too has AGW been *constructed* as a political and commercial tool to exactly fit the fashionable bigotry of the New Green Left.

The Piltdown Man fraud lasted - despite completely valid questions being raised from the outset - for 40 years.

We have had about 30 years of AGW to date.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think that's a poor example. The Thames may have frozen over for reasons other than just ambient temperature. The speed it flows at, and water pollution. And of course the ambient temperature in cities is higher than surrounding areas - I'd guess more so than in those days.

[bert]

Apparently it's all down to farting cows - or more accurately a load of bullocks.

[DJC]

The Thames was a lot wider and slower flowing before embankment, it was also a lot cleaner. So not necessarily evidence of warming.

[harry]

Once in a hundred years of course shit-fer-brains.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Cleaner? Thought it was once just an open sewer. ;-)

[NY]

The building of the embankment and the building of Bazalgette's sewer to clean the Thames happened at the same time (the embankment was built to take the sewer).

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is not established that sewage freezes above freezing point any more than ordinary river water does.

AS we see a complete straw man raised to obfuscate and divert attention away from the salient fact. It was a lot colder 300 years ago than it is now, or was 600 years ago.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not just sewage in the Thames. All sorts of chemicals from the industries of the day. Not saying that influenced the freezing point though.

But a slower flowing shallower river will freeze more easily. And I think most would agree that the ambient temperature in large cities is influenced by man's behaviour. And that difference is going to be much greater now than then.

You've got accurate figures world wide from 600 years ago?

[dennis]

Nearly everything that makes a solution in water freezes below 0C.

I don't recall anything that makes it freeze at a higher temperature.

[dennis]

Bollocks. We don't have records that go back far enough to be able to say they happen only once in a hundred years. Its just more propaganda from the alarmists like you.

[Tim Streater]

harry is such a twerp, ain't he? I'm still waiting to hear what sort of event a "hundred year event" is.

[Richard]

Tiring and tedious, I'd say.