OT:Windmills

[Roger Chapman]

snip

Nowhere have I said that GW is caused solely (or even mainly) by CO2 but CO2 is a greenhouse gas and thus has some warming effect. A fact acknowledged even by the charlatan who claims water vapour is responsible for 95.000% of the greenhouse effect.

It doesn't matter a damn where you put the base line. Either a selected timespan is warmer than the preceding period or it is not. There is too much natural variability to be positive using just a handful of years but trends over a decade or more are certainly indicative of either warming or cooling. That is true irrespective of the cause.

Come on now, just answer the question.

I am prepared to look at evidence put forward by anyone, even you. The trouble with your evidence is that there isn't any. If there was you would quickly post the links and crow at my discomfort at not being able to refute it. But even there you would be wrong. I am always happy to accept credible evidence.

You are really Dribble and I claim my £5.

[Roger Chapman]

snip

Why should I when I am still comfortable at over 100mph in certain circumstances?

The fact that you wrote that paragraph above demonstrates that you lack the ability to comprehend even the simplest of ideas. But then you are always turning ideas on their head so reading "too fast for comfort under any circumstances" as "I am comfortable driving anywhere at 70mph" is par for the course.

[Roger Chapman]

Thinking about it my remark was certainly open to that interpretation even though it was not what I intended. So my apologies for jumping the gun.

[dennis]

I don't think anyone here has denied that the greenhouse effect probably exists and that CO2 will then have an effect. The argument is, does the bit made by man have any significant effect. You haven't presented much in the way of evidence to show it has in the past and none at all that it will.

Well stating the obvious isn't actually proving anything is it. It is obvious that anyone can select a decade or two and show that the temperature is rising or falling. Proving what causes it is the issue, that and predicting what will happen next.

[dennis]

Your bet was as meaningless as everything else you say. BTW it is possible for someone who has never flown to have flown less miles than you.. Maybe you have used a trampoline more than I have? such is the stupidity of what you said and tried to win.

[The Natural Philosopher]

LOok its really simple.

*IN the absence of other effects*, does an increase in atmospheric CO2 lead to a rise in mean global temperatures?

The answer is an almost unanimous yes.,

Is the current rise in atmospheric CO2 correlated with industrial activity since 1700?

The answer from ice cores is a resounding yes, and its so close as to be beyond coincidence.

Is this something we can affect. The answer is obviously yes. As a coherent human society we can. As a bunch of ill educated peasants dimply aware of little more than our immediate survival, the answer is less clear.

Now, that's where the simple answers stop.

Will some other consequences of rising temperature act to limit it (like rainfall with water vapour). The answer is we don't know, but of all the possible candidates, there are more that will act to make things WORSE than better.

Are the likely effects of human generated CO2 less than those that derive from sources we cant affect, like sunspots, volcanoes, general random variation etc etc. To date, yes. A supervolcano could wipe out half the planet in a giant freeze, followed by a giant thaw and an average 10C temperature rise.

Is that a reason NOT to do something about it? Do you fail to Attend to a sore tooth on tHe off chAnce you will die in a car accident tomorrow?

SHOULD we do something about it. That implies a moral imperative. Science doesn't do morals.

[dennis]

Lets see, "I am going to give up driving when I find 70 mph to fast for comfort under any circumstances".

So if you find it comfortable driving at 70 mph under any circumstances you will continue to drive. So the fact that you are continuing to drive means you do find driving at 70 mph under any circumstances comfortable. Therefore your judgment is useless and you should quit now.

[dennis]

Do you want a bet?

Well if you remove everything else somehow then I agree. Just how you are going to do that though?

Its a resounding maybe but maybe not. For a large portion of the graphs the temps go up followed by an increase in CO2. Does that prove CO2 is causing the rise?

[Roger Chapman]

As I said in the post you ignored what I said is open to interpretation, particularly from a bloody minded individual like you, but the common sense meaning is that I will give up driving when there are no circumstances in which I find driving at 70mph comfortable.

[Roger Chapman]

Run out of argument so switched to insults have you. Oh well I suspect that the only person that will impress is yourself.

And what about the 99 other impossible things you do before breakfast?

By no stretch of the imagination is trampolining flying in the same sense as being transported by air but like flying if you think you have done less than me then you are wrong.

As for who is being stupid I am quite content to leave that to the others to judge.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You have deliberately or not, misquoted me. Where in

"Is the current rise in atmospheric CO2 correlated with industrial activity since 1700?"

is any mention of temperature, made?

Many things cause temperature variations. The fact that one of them, whose value is directly correlated to industrial activity and has been rising in step with it since about 1700, is the key issue.

Do you after all not bother to put a seat belt on because you COULD be killed by a falling tree?

It is actually IRRELEVANT whether or not the temperature has, in any particular place, been rising or falling over the last 20, 30, 40 years.

We DO know that in northern polar regions, it is mots certainly warmer than it has been since we explored those regions: To the point where the North West passage is now occasionally open. All that ice has gone somewhere..

What is relevant, is that atmospheric CO2 is increasing exponentially, and unless you know qa lot better, will certainly NOT make the world colder.

AND we CAN do something about it.

So, should we or not?

[dennis]

I didn't ignore your post, I replied to the first one I got to. There was no point replying to the next one as you admitted that what you wrote was wrong.

Nothing bloody minded about me, I just read what people say rather than what they think they say.

There is nothing commonsense about that.

[Roger Chapman]

The earth's temperature is fluctuating so any rise cannot be put down wholly to increasing CO2 nor any fall decreasing CO2. However the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere will increase the temperature over what would otherwise be the case and one of the side effects of that increase(and one that lags considerably) is that the oceans get warmer than they otherwise would releasing CO2 that would have otherwise have remained in solution and thus forcing the temperature even higher until a temporary equilibrium is reached in which the earth's heat losses are matched by solar gains before any cooling factors become so large that they start to overcome the warming effect of the CO2.

[dennis]

No misquote, just a commonsense interpretation of what you wanted to say. The rise in CO2 is meaningless unless you link it to an effect.

well I am glad you think what you said is irrelevant, I spent a good few milliseconds trying to work it out. I couldn't.

About GW, maybe, maybe not. About our dependence on energy imports, yes.

[Roger Chapman]

Well that in itself is an improvement. Last time around there was at least one (and probably more) who were arguing that the greenhouse effect did not exist.

To take the last point first if anthropomorphic CO2 has had a significant effect on the global warming since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution then it will undoubtedly have an increasing effect in the years to come as the big polluters fail to control their output.

I have put forward a number of links, some of which I think are credible and even at least one that I think might not be credible. You OTOH have produced nothing but invective and bluster padded out with a large quantity of gibberish. AFAICT you position is basically GW doesn't exist and the earth has been considerably warmer in the recent past neither of which will pass a reality test.

I am glad that you do at least accept that my summary above is stating the obvious. It is just a pity that much of what you have said in this thread seems to be in conflict with it.

Global warming or global cooling. QED.

Absolute proof is not possible because we can't control all the many parameters that effect the way things are. It is only by seeing how close predictions come to future reality that we can have a measure of confidence that at least the major elements in any model have been treated appropriately.

There are claims out there than we are already well into a cooling phase. That is stuff and nonsense. There is a prediction that we are now in a cooling phase that will last to 2030 after which there will be another warming phase. That prediction is at odds with the mainstream one of continuing warming. We will just have to wait to see which one is closer to the truth but in ten years time there should be no doubt who was on the right track. By then will anyone remember what we are arguing about now?

If the current mainstream theories are correct then, catastrophes apart, predictions for the future are more likely to correct than anything out of the sceptics armoury. If they are not correct the sceptics may possibly have been right all along but FWIW my money is on them both being wrong if mainstream science has got it wrong.There is just too much wrong with the sceptic arguments for the outcome to follow their predictions (except by accident).

As I said to Terry last time around (on whether the decline from 2005 would continue) we will just have to wait and see but atm the decline appears to have been reversed and as I see it the warming trend is more likely than not to continue for at least a year or two yet. The best case scenario (for the world as a whole in the short term)is that the current up turn is small and we really have seen the end of this warming phase. That in itself raises a worry for the longer term - how long before the next ice age?

[dennis]

Its not much of an improvement, there are still some that deny water as being the biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect, followed by methane.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually the biggest contributor to global warming is the sun.

You couldn't even get THAT right...:-(

[dennis]

The greenhouse effect doesn't depend on the sun for its effect. Any source of heat will do, even your hot air.

[Roger Chapman]

snip

There are cranks at the margins of any argument but I don't think you will actually find anyone to deny that water vapour has a bigger effect than the other greenhouse gases. What is usually the case is the argument is concentrated on the actual effect of the various greenhouse gases whose concentrations are accurately known and which vary only slowly and uniformly. Water vapour, depending on time and place, will vary from 0% t0 100% humidity and the humidity is dependent on the local temperature as well. Water vapour just cannot be considered in the same way as other greenhouse gases and that is before the effect of clouds is considered which act as an insulation blanket during the night and as a solar reflector during the day.

And it is only the cranks that will rank methane as a more important greenhouse gas than CO2. It is indeed a much more potent greenhouse gas but that isn't the same thing at all.

[dennis]

However water vapour at low altitudes has little effect. Its the stuff high up that matters, you know the stuff you have difficulty in measuring.