Re: HEAT !!!

[Steve Firth]

One wonders why he did not say that, then.

Does he expect everyone to fill in the blanks in his argument?

If that was what he wanted to say, it's still not true.

Water is a serious issue in global warming, but it's not a climate forcing issue because the water vapour content of the atmosphere is a function of temperature. However water vapour is involved in a positive feedback mechanism, which means that as the temperature increases, the water vapour content of the atmosphere increases which means that the atmosphere can carry more water, etc. The fact that water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas cannot be overlooked nor can it be dismissed as "not an issue".

This paper looks at the influence of water vapour on anthropogenic global wamrming:

"For the present, a consensus of selected high-level researchers at the international level has agreed that the contribution of water vapor to anthropogenic warming is assumed to be in the neighborhood of 50%."

50% doesn't sound like "not an issue" to me.

[Roger Thorpe]

Well, not completely true. there are more and more heat driven chillers these days. (remember gas fridges?) Usually industrial scale stuff, it's getting smaller and allows the use of solar thermal energy to drive air conditioning. This is where a lot of researchers, including important groups in germany and China are aiming to make progress towards commercialisation.

If you deny global warming then it's another argument, but the energy consumed by aircon globally is significant and increasing.

That's not been my experience, a lot of people seem to overdo aircon, just to prove they've got it. I've been to many hotels, conference rooms, cars and buses that were over-cooled.

Roger Thorpe

[Roger Thorpe]

This doesn't mean that *anthropogenic* water vapour has a significant GW effect. What it's saying is that the *existing* water vapour amplifies the GW effect of CO2 etc (try "water vapour feedback effect") Basically the argument goes that, since warmer air can hold more water vapour then any atmospheric warming will increase the levels of water in the air and so increase the GW effect.

Do you want to discuss whether the levels of anthropogenic water vapour are significant or do we agree on that bit?

Roger Thorpe

P.S. if we're going to carry on then maybe we should reduce the crossposting. I'd prefer to leave it on u.t.

[Steve Firth]

Again, the OP did not make that clear in his post, stating that "water vapur is not an issue." It is both an issue in global warmign and specifically an issue in anthropogenic global warming.

Grandmother, eggs, vacuum.

Do you want a five minute argument or the full half hour?

It has no relevance to uk.transport, since it is not transport related. Nor does it really have any relevance to any of the groups to which it is cross-posted.

[Roger Thorpe]

Ah, I see. were not trying to learn anything, it's just championship level disingenuousness semantics and nit-picking

Now this is where we definitely agree and seems a convenient place to stop. (for me) Roger Thorpe

[Steve Firth]

No, it's an attempt to keep statements made about global warming and the influences upon it accurate and capable of rational interpretation.

Random, whatever, or some such as young people are prone to saying.

[GB]

No, this was cross-posted. Some newsgroups are, ahem, more robust and frank than others, but I can't see the need for it.

[Brimstone]

Perhaps the level of robustness and frankness is in proportion to the bozoness of the contributors? :-)

[Roger Thorpe]

The variations in newsgroups culture are quite surprising, one of the most "robust" groups on the uk branch is uk.rec.motorcycling yet you would have to look very hard to find name-calling flaming or trolling in that group. I don't know why that is so. But peep into 'birdwatching' or 'waterways' and you'll find a nice bunch of people pestered by one or two loonies who just won't stop. Doug is an angel in comparison, and I don't quite know why you let him get under your skin so much. Roger Thorpe

[Brimstone]

What Doug provides is endless amusement. He is the Usenet equivalent of the village idiot. One or two appear to get their underwear in disarray over his comments at times but they tend to do that with other people as well.

[Roger T.]

Carbon levels are 10 times LESS than what they were 1000 years ago. Before the industrial revolution in case you wondered.

Mount St. Helen's put more carbon into the atmosphere than the whole of mankind in its existance has ever put into the atmosphere, and Mount St. Helens was a small volcano, as volcanos go.

There are volcanos spewing carbon into the atmosphere all over the world, all the time.

Carbon is what life on earth of formed from.

All this "carbon footprint" is just uninformed politicians jumping on the carbon band wagon and using it as an excuse to raise taxes.

Where I'm sitting right now, 8,000 to 10,000 years ago was covered in one mile of ice. A few hundred thousand years before that, it was a tropical forest. In Roman times, they grew grapes from the Midlands down to southern England. In Nelson's time, the Thames froze over and there was an ice fair every winter held on the frozen river.

Global warming is a natural cycle.

Man made global warming? Bah, Humbug!

-- Cheers

Roger T. Home of the Great Eastern Railway at:-

48° 25' North Longitude: 123° 21' West

[R.C. Payne]

If you're sitting where I suspect you are[1], most maps I've seen put you right at the limit of glaciation in the last ice age. Oceans are good things for keeping the ice back, where I am sitting now[2] escaped glaciation in the last ice age.

[1]

[2] 50° 12' N, 0° 7' W

Robin

[Roger Thorpe]

Sorry mate, I think that this is quite simply wrong. Could you let us know where you got that figure from? Google(as they say) Is Your Friend There's a graph at

goes back to 400,000 years ago. Don't assume that the right hand end of that graph represents the current position, that data only goes up to 1950. The current CO2 level is around 385 ppmv. Thorpe

[geoff]

We have des ...

[Roger T.]

"R.C. Payne"

You are correct. I'm on Southern Vancouver Island, near the edge of glaciation.

However, the point is, that there was about a mile of ice where I'm sitting and it wasn't caused by mankind. :-)

Global warming is a natural cycle and has little, if anything to do with humankind. If it did, then why is the temperature on Mars also rising? Mmmmmm?

-- Cheers

Roger T. Home of the Great Eastern Railway at:-

48° 25' North Longitude: 123° 21' West

[Roger T.]

I read it in a book from the library about three months ago, written by a scientist who disputes man-made global warming and I'll be damned if I can recall the name of the book or the author. Someone, possibly on this group, also made reference to the same book a few weeks ago. So, as I can't quote the text, for now I'll conceed the point.

But as I wrote, in Roman times they grew grapes from the Midlands down to the south and in Nelson's time, say from around 1750 or so to the 1820 or so, the Thames used to freeze over and they have a winter fair and the rich would drive their carriages across the ice. One of the so-called mini ice-ages. The last one was from 1870 to 1950, I think.

Using the carbon graph above, you'll notice that there is a regular cycle of peaks and valleys and we are about where we should be based on that almost regular cycle.

However, using the temperature graph, that also seems to have regular cycles, we are below were we should be.

Therefore, I guess I can still say, "Man made global warming? Bah! Humbug!" :-)

-- Cheers

Roger T. Home of the Great Eastern Railway at:-

48° 25' North Longitude: 123° 21' West

[Steve Firth]

Local variation. Milankovich cycles. The UK was on the equator 125,000 years ago. Nurse! Is it time for my bath yet?

[Paul Herber]

No it wasn't. Not even 125M years ago.

[Roger Thorpe]

I'd encourage you to go back and look at the scales on the graphs. (remember that Humans only evolved about 200,00 years ago). The historic peak CO2 level is about 300 ppmv in the timeframe recorded there, and the current level is 385ppmv. This level is rising at about

1.45 ppmv per year. with business as usual there's no reason to think that this rate will decrease, in fact with global industrialization it would probably increase. That rate of 1.45 mppv per year would put us at 446 mppv by 2050. I think that the last time it was at that kind of concentration the world was quite different. The real GW problem is not the climate as it is now, but what it might be like in the future. The basic science behind the greenhouse effect is really quite simple and the greenhouse is a good analogy. The simplified model is clear and the science behind it solid. The energy comes to earth as sunlight, but cannot easily leave the surface because the gases in the atmosphere reflect the longer wavelengths back to earth. Of course the real situation is more complex, with the interplay of many processes including reflections by clouds, ice cover etc. etc. But those with any scientific competence who deny GW are very few in number. I think that you can put together a reasonably good picture of the issues in an afternoon with wikipedia.

Roger Thorpe

[Steve Firth]

.

Whoosh Your head

The tag was significant.