Tree Huggers and Government

[TheOldFellow]

Suspect it's because he's NOT plaid by the government to say what the Gov wants said.

Save the world, eat politicians.

R.

[TheOldFellow]

No, but GoreDoom Broon is from Pluto. (courtesy of Walt Disney)

R.

[nightjar]

I make no such claim, although both Russian and Danish climatologists would disagree with them. I have simply present easily checked facts and leave the readers to draw their own conclusions. One additional fact is that the Met Office is a government funded body that supports the official government view on climate change.

The fact that there has been no global warming since 1998 comes from figures produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre, which agree with those produced by the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Remote Sensing Systems. Those figures show that global average temperatures remained virtually unchanged in the following decade, except for a drop of 0.65C - 0.75C during 2007. That is about the same as they rose in the preceding century. 2007 was also a year of unusually low sunspot activity.

Sunspot cycle 24 was expected to start around the end of 2007. As it has not yet started, it is considered to be running late, although still within recorded variations.

Historically, late sunspot cycles have preceded sunspot minima, which have coincided with extended periods of global cooling. The Maunder minimum

1645 - 1715, for example, during which sunspot activity was about 0.1% of normal, coincided with the coldest part of Europe's little ice age. While the Met Office may say that the mechanism by which cosmic radiation can affect global climate is speculative and unquantified, the same would be true of any of the current theories 50 years ago.

Colin Bignell

[<frank_lee]

Seems a bit of a check.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Definitely.

[dennis]

required predictions? Try looking for some of the NOAA(IIRC) weather sat surface temp measurements.. they have disappeared, probably due to the fact they showed a drop in surface temps.

[geoff]

In message , nightjar writes

Strangely enough, that argument has just been blown away on the climate wars on BBC2 tonight

The data which indicated cooling came from satellites and contradicted temperatures indicated by land based thermometers

The erroneous satellite data was due to the satellites a) slowing down and b) dropping in orbit - and confirmed as erroneous by those who originally interpreted the satellite data

[meow2222]

some of this. CFLs do make sense if youre happy with the result - a lot of people arent though.

NT

[nightjar]

I shall have to watch the programme before I can comment in full.

It contradicted the NASA data, which has recently been revised, after it was found that correcting errors found in the method of calculation resulted in four of the warmest years on record ocurring in the 1930s. The details of the changes arising from the revision are here:

Met Office Hadley Centre data, which also uses land based themometers, agrees with the satellite data.

Those errors were first identified in 1998

Bignell

[Dave Liquorice]

Technically Mr Fish was correct the Great Storm was not a hurricane as in Ike or Gustav. If a hurricane, even small category 1 one, was to hit the UK the damage done by the Great Storm would be nothing by comparision. Pretty much the entire country would have devastation worse that the worse bits caused by the Great Storm.

Hurricanes are *BIG* and *VERY* powerful.

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:20:26 +0100 someone who may be "nightjar" wrote this:-

"Answer: At the time, 1998 was a record high year in both the CRU and the NASA GISS analyses. In fact, it blew away the previous record by .2 degrees C. (That previous record went all the way back to 1997, by the way!)

"According to NASA, it was elevated far above the trend line because

1998 was the year of the strongest El Nino of the century. Choosing that year as a starting point is a classic cherry pick and demonstrates why it is necessary to remove chaotic year-to year-variability (aka: weather) by smoothing out the data. Looking at CRU's graph below, you can see the result of that smoothing in black."

"Change in solar activity is one of the many factors that influence the climate but cannot, on its own, account for all the changes in global average temperature we have seen in the 20th Century.

"Changes in the Sun's activity influence the Earth's climate through small but significant variations in its intensity. When it is in a more active' phase as indicated by a greater number of sunspots on its surface it emits more light and heat. While there is evidence of a link between solar activity and some of the warming in the early

20th Century, measurements from satellites show that there has been very little change in underlying solar activity in the last 30 years there is even evidence of a detectable decline and so this cannot account for the recent rises we have seen in global temperatures."

Both references have been provided before.

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:11:14 GMT someone who may be "The Medway Handyman" wrote this:-

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 18:34:35 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Though you neglected to provide an example.

[dennis]

And very very wet. There would be plenty of places under water.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I find they can do that themselves more than adequately.

FOE is a religion, not a science.

[Dave Liquorice]

Naw, there wouldn't be any places left.

Look at the damage a silly little *gusts* to 40 or 50mph can do in an urban area. Take those gusts, double 'em and make that sustained wind with gusts even higher and there wouldn't be a lot left standing.

[dennis]

What wind speed are concrete tiles rated for? They aren't fixed down.

[Dave Liquorice]

I would expect the makers website to have that information available.

The concrete tiles we had on the barn used to bang quite nicely when the wind got above about F8 (40mph sustained) and they where fixed. The slates that replaced them rattle. There is an odd shaped vally between two gable ends that are at 90 deg to each other and it's the top leeside bit in the vally that really make the noise, presumably down to turbulance.

We are rather exposed, anything below F6 (25mph sustained) we don't notice but vistors will comment "Isn't it windy?" when coming in (on the sheltered side of the house) or when looking out of the windows at the silver birch or rowan trees moving about a bit.

[nightjar]

Did you have problems understanding the bit where the three other major sources are in agreement that there has been no increase in global temperatures since 1998?

NASA likes to re-write history.

?p=2964>Sunspot cycle 24 was expected to start around the end of 2007. As it has >>not

You seem to suffer from comprehension problems. That is about whether solar activity could be responsible for the measured increases in temperature during the 20th century. It is not about whether sun spot cycle 24 is late nor is it about whether solar minima have historically coincided with decades long periods of global cooling. Of course, the NASA figures you refer to above did, until the last re-write of history, show that four of the warmest years in that century were in the 1930s, so perhaps there really was no warming.

Colin Bignell

[Roger]

The message from "nightjar" contains these words:

So what is their current explanation for the excessive summer shrinkage of the arctic ice, particularly this year.