Global Warming? *What* Global warming?

[onq]

The road outside is covered in ice since New Year's Eve when the snow started to fall around our area - I know others have had it longer.

That's Wednesday last for those with dodgy memories of days around Christmas time [me included].

It is the longest and deepest cold spell for fifty years.

"So far!" as Homer Simpson might say.

Councils are running out of grit.

The reasons for having well-insulated homes seems to have less to do with Global Warming than a New Ice Age.

FWIW

ONQ.

 

[jhegarty]

They changed it to climate change a few years back when the warming bit stopped.

 

[Tinker Bell]

What is global warming ? Surely a sobriquet for global cooling

 

[onq]

They changed it to climate change a few years back when the warming bit stopped.

Aha! Yes, well spotted.

The fact is these Green Genie geniuses are pushing us in a direction I'm not sure I want to be pushed into.

oNQ.

 

[PyritePete]

Aha! Yes, well spotted.

The fact is these Green Genie geniuses are pushing us in a direction I'm not sure I want to be pushed into.

oNQ.

+1, the ClimateGate scandal prior to the Copenhagen summit IMO dented the viewpoint of global warming peddlars. If global warming is such a "slam-dunk" then why aren't all the scientists involved in agreement ?

 

[Latrade]

+1, the ClimateGate scandal prior to the Copenhagen summit IMO dented the viewpoint of global warming peddlars. If global warming is such a "slam-dunk" then why aren't all the scientists involved in agreement ?

Every. Single. Year. It gets cold and we get the "what global warming?". It's an average temperature, not a constant. So some winters will be colder, that's the nature of weather systems (such as effects causing the jet stream to drop in a more southerly direction than usual allowing arctic air to hit this part of the world). And as an average, some years will be warmer, some colder, it doesn't mean that the average temperatures aren't increasing (they are).

It's true that not all "scientists" agree, but then you have to look at the detail behind that often peddled "fact". First, the scientists to me who do matter, climatologists do agree which says a lot. Less than 1% of climatologists dispute that there is some effect on the climate from man-made emissions, that's as good a scientific agreement as you can get. The vast majority of those "scientists" who dispute the "evidence" are engineers. As an engineer myself I know that it just isn't my field, the vast majority of exceptions to the evidence come from outside the field that is studying and experienced. Also the same document classes chemical engineers as chemists which goes to show that the body putting together this smoking gun really didn't know science at all.

And yup the Climategate was a clanger. Those involved had ignored all scientific standards before putting together their documents (I'm of the Feynman school of science and think all weaknesses, assumptions and bias in a scientific paper should be clearly spelled out in the paper, not hidden or discarded) and in my opinion should resign. However, they weren't revelations about the data, just stuff that was pretty well known in terms of some accuracies on the data, they wrongly chose to not include margins of error etc, but even with that knowledge the overall conclusion is still the same in terms of the emissions having an impact.

How big an impact is unknown, whether we can do anything about it is pretty much known: probably not. It makes sense to try to limit as much we can emissions, it also makes sense to not be so dependent on fossil fuels, it makes even better sense for Ireland to not be so dependent given the cost we pay for fossil fuels.

Take out the newspaper hyperbole, take out anything Al Gore says, ignore the IPPC political policy and what you're left with is a more reasoned body of science that gives some good evidence, that still shows that we're unsure of the overall impact, but that there are currently effects and there's little to be lost by looking for some means of mitigation.

 

[onq]

Latrade,
There is a lot in what you say.
Unfortunately there are some hard facts that deny your comments.

The first is obvious.
It is undeniably true that it gets colder in winter.
This is not a normally cold winter - it is a 50year return winter.

The second is that consensus doesn't imply correct reasoning.
For years the medical and pharmaceutical professions made millions out of ulcer sufferers before Dr Barry J. Marshall and Dr J. Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia discovered the H. Pylori bacterium.
Prior to that the consensus of conventional "wisdom" amongst scientists and medical practitioners was that bacteria couldn't live in the stomach because of the acid there.
So much for the consensus of conventional scientific wisdom.

In relation to Global warming there is scientific evidence to the contrary as well:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

It seems clear ot me that the warming trend is so slight as to fall well within accepted natural limits.
The suggestion that its all down to man-made "forcing" appears hard to sustain.

I have no problem OTOH with the aim of reducing our dependancy on fossil fuels - if that is what they are.
Have you ever heard of a fossil being discovered in any of the billions of barrels of crude that have been extracted from the ground?
Even one?
I'm not talking about the Mastodons that were preserved in Tar Pits that were already there, btw.
Yes, we see fossils from coal, but not a single thing found floating in an oil reservoir.
Maybe its all lying at the bottom for us to discover.

But to achieve even passive house standards by 2013 will be impossible for the Irish Building industry as a whole.
There simply isn't enough building going on to dessiminate the necessary skills, products and information.
There have been no white papers that I am aware of in relation to the long-term health and financial effects of air conditioning houses and reliance on heat pumps, solar panel pumps and turbine generators.
Assuming the full set costs €15,000 at today's prices and include the fact they'll need renewing every 15 years average, that works out to be an additional €1,000 a year on the heating bills.
Plus you're investing in high-embedded-energy components for all these systems.

Add to that our supposedly increased health due to living in warm houses, but take away health due to respiratory problems due to air conditioning and "softening us up" due to constant warm environments and we could all end up with permanent colds every time we go outside in 10 degrees centrigrade or less.

What's the overall price for sustainability then?

FWIW

ONQ.

 

[jhegarty]

And as an average, some years will be warmer, some colder, it doesn't mean that the average temperatures aren't increasing (they are).

Do you have a source for that , I understood that tempatures have been static of the last 10 years.

 

[Latrade]

Latrade,

There is a lot in what you say.
Unfortunately there are some hard facts that deny your comments.

The first is obvious.
It is undeniably true that it gets colder in winter.
This is not a normally cold winter - it is a 50year return winter.

Never said it was usual, just in terms of averages you get some patterns outside the bell curve. This is one. However, the mechanics behind the cold spell are known and understood.

The second is that consensus doesn't imply correct reasoning.

For years the medical and pharmaceutical professions made millions out of ulcer sufferers before Dr Barry J. Marshall and Dr J. Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia discovered the H. Pylori bacterium.
Prior to that the consensus of conventional "wisdom" amongst scientists and medical practitioners was that bacteria couldn't live in the stomach because of the acid there.
So much for the consensus of conventional scientific wisdom.

Never said it did, but your examples are flawed too many points. First, there are plenty of examples where new science is accepted due to the evidence presented. Newton, discovery of radiation, Relativity, cholera, etc, etc. The point is for every one example where science doubted a theory, there’s several where the evidence was sufficient. So yup, many disputed the completely logical Plate Tectonics, Black Holes, Expanding Universe, Big Bang Theory, and so on. But they all became accepted when they were tested and replicated. That’s what happens in science.

The only problem with climatology is that it is difficult (well impossible) to replicate in a laboratory such a complex system so they rely on computer modelling. But we just don’t have the computer processing to really give accurate data, so we have to scale it down a bit. But the point is the actual papers written by actual climatologists don’t dispute this, it’s the reports written by political bodies that try to fudge this issue.

But there is a stack of evidence both historical, current and based on modelling that shows an effect from CO2 on climate. The effect is based on actual stuff like physics and so is invariably predictable and sound. The vagaries come in when it comes to predicting the actual scale and extent of the results. It’s highly unlikely to be anywhere near the apocalypse present by Al Gore, in fact there’s only Al Gore, the media and political parties saying it will. But the concern among climatologists is that we just don’t know and the effects can be compounded (either towards warming or cooling) by other factors and activity. In isolation one small factor influencing the climate will have a moderate effect, however if another factor is introduced say a massive volcano eruption, the two in combination can be very serious.

The simple issues is we honestly don’t know what the impact will be, it may be negligible, but do we want to take that chance or do we want to do something to try to mitigate an effect?

In relation to Global warming there is scientific evidence to the contrary as well:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.html

I’m ending that one there. The petition project is a crock. As big a crock as the IPCC report in my opinion. One put together by political interest not scientific. Couple of points though on the petition project:

1. The signatories are a bit dodgy. For example it’s interesting to see that Geri Halliwell, Michael J Fox and John Grisham are presented as scientific signatories.
2. To keep coming back to the same issue CLIMATOLOGISTS are suspiciously absent. Those who claimed to be PHD level climatologists numbered 1400, not bad, but the report had over 30,000 signatories as a proportion that’s low and as a proportion of climatologists, its even lower. Also when checked out, 10% of the climatologists turned out to be dead, many more actually didn’t hold a doctorate. In the end it’s about 200 climatologists.
3. It uses old data long since updated to dispute climate change. Unfortunately, satellite monitoring shows warming, they still use old balloon data.

I have no problem OTOH with the aim of reducing our dependancy on fossil fuels - if that is what they are.
Have you ever heard of a fossil being discovered in any of the billions of barrels of crude that have been extracted from the ground?
Even one?
I'm not talking about the Mastodons that were preserved in Tar Pits that were already there, btw.
Yes, we see fossils from coal, but not a single thing found floating in an oil reservoir.
Maybe its all lying at the bottom for us to discover. .

Ok…possibly the most bizarre statement ever. Guess what, there’s no Xs in X-Rays, so they must be a myth. It’s a name that’s all it doesn’t mean oil is made up of fossilised dinosaurs. Umm to be blunt, this kind of statement cast significant doubt on your ability to interpret the evidence in this case.

But to achieve even passive house standards by 2013 will be impossible for the Irish Building industry as a whole.
There simply isn't enough building going on to dessiminate the necessary skills, products and information.
There have been no white papers that I am aware of in relation to the long-term health and financial effects of air conditioning houses and reliance on heat pumps, solar panel pumps and turbine generators.
Assuming the full set costs €15,000 at today's prices and include the fact they'll need renewing every 15 years average, that works out to be an additional €1,000 a year on the heating bills.
Plus you're investing in high-embedded-energy components for all these systems.

Add to that our supposedly increased health due to living in warm houses, but take away health due to respiratory problems due to air conditioning and "softening us up" due to constant warm environments and we could all end up with permanent colds every time we go outside in 10 degrees centrigrade or less.

What's the overall price for sustainability then?

FWIW

ONQ.

Again, the above is quite bizarre. Who said anything about air conditioning? What’s that got to do with anything? We’re talking about reducing the reliance on fossil fuels to power out energy requirements. Yes there is work that can be done on homes in terms of efficiency but I start to get the feeling you’re not really sure what this whole debate is about.

Do you have a source for that , I understood that temperatures have been static of the last 10 years.

It’s complicated. Global temperatures have been relatively stable since 1999, but this is on the back of a few caveats. First, 2005 was much warmer (2nd warmest on record after 1989). Second, it’s a global average, so as with all averages, the mean is hides some areas of warming and some of cooling (northern hemisphere land temperatures are much higher). If you take the land temperatures are increasing (hence the NH being warmer because it has more land), but the sea temperature remains stable (so SH with more sea hasn’t seen dramatic increases), but land heats up quicker that the sea, but the effect is to give some balance in the mean.

However, a 10 year snapshot is too small a time frame, that’s why the larger data over more decades shows an increase.

 

[onq]

Well Latrade I'm heartened by that fact that you took time to reply to someone you think isn't sure what this whole debate is about.

<chuckle>

I presented one website not because of the signatories, but because it showed graphical representations of climate change going back several hundre years and more.

I tend to take in information best graphically and I thought we might discuss this information and hopefully someone would post some counter information from scientific sources I could look at.

Unfortunately, you didn't address the issues raised on that website.
You dissed the website instead.

Part of the argument about not increasing greehouse gases is that we use up fossil fuels in so doing - I raised the question of why oil is considered a fossil fuel at all and you dissed that.

Finally one of the DEAP/BER primary means of conserving heat and energy is to use a mechanical venting and heat reclamation system which bargain basement aircon - it doesn't actively cool or change humidity of the incoming air.
This Green agenda is driven by the spectre of Global Warming and so I questioned it.
Again you just dissed this.

That's fair enough, you're entitled ot your opinion, its just that I hoped for more - a reasonaed rebuttal perhaps, as opposed to citing other people'ss opinions or documents they signed.

You see, where you might see all the above points as disjointed, I see them as all as interrelated.
Carbon Neutral buildings and energy conservation technology is going to incur massive costs in the building industry in Ireland.
It will virtually wipe out the traditional builder, who will be confined to building garden walls and sheds.
I am very concerned that it will incur less than obvious financial and health costs on homeowners in the name of cutting down on CO2 and the use of one of its prime generators, fossil fuels.

I asked the basic question about the primary driver of all of this - What Global Warming?

For example, there is the Little Ice Age:

"Any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age:

* 1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow
* 1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
* 1315 for the rains and Great Famine of 1315-1317
* 1550 for theorized beginning of worldwide glacial expansion
* 1650 for the first climatic minimum

In contrast to its uncertain beginning, there is a consensus that the Little Ice Age ended in the mid-19th century"

Here is a link showing the Holocene temperature variations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png

Finally here is a link showing more recent fluctuations:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Short_Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

The temperature has dropped since 1997, but of course the guy drawing the red line fails to take the drop in temperature 2002-2006 into account - possibly because it doesn't suit the global warming hypothesis.

We don't know why this little Ice Age occurred.
We don't know why the Antartic Ice Sheet grew.
We don't know why upper Hocene variations occur.
We don't know why temperatures reduced after 1997

I'm not a climatologist, but I am a building professional having completed a five year full time course from a third level institution.

This makes me more of a generalist than a specialist, but it also means that I can recognise the presence of unknowns in an assessment.

The same argument you use about statistics works in my favour.
We are still within the statistical deviation for the observed values.
More importantly, we need to discover all the causes of Global Warming, if it is occurring.
There is ample scientific evidence that CO2 emissions were high well into the ice ages, that there was no direct correlation between their incidence and Global temerature.
On the contrary, it is a given that the huge East Antarctic ice sheet grew slightly between 1992 and 2003.
So things aren't as cut and dried as the scientists would have you believe Latrade and this discussion should relfect and address that, not seek to diss the subject or the messengers.
With so much contadictory evidence available and that which is available not too well understood in absolute terms, I am concerned that the current concern about Global Warming may be mere manipulation:

• to get us obeying poorly-researched governmental edicts worldwide.
• to totally undermine another indigenous industry [after fishing and farming]
• to make us more dependent on imported products supporting global urbanization.

I strongly suggest that we owe it to ourselves to question such huge proposed sea-changes in the way we build and the way we live and not jump on the Global Warming bandwagon.

FWIW

ONQ.

 

[Latrade]

Your question about fossil fuel was, well, startling. If it was a light hearted jest, then fine, if was a serious query then it kind of shows that you’ve not really put much effort into looking into this issue. It wouldn’t take five minutes to see it’s just a name and the legitimate and well understood processes by which various fossil fuels are formed. That lack of effort makes me wonder why I should put all the effort in. Why should I engage in a debate when the starting point is preposterous? Just so you know, fossil fuel is a collective term for various fuels formed from ancient organic matter. Depending on where it was (land or sea) the matter died and depending on heat and pressure you get different fuels, solid, liquid, gas.

Yes I dismissed the Petition Project because it just isn’t worth anyone’s effort to take it seriously. It makes all the mistakes that the fundamentalist global warming vocalists make, redundant data and half truths. But the whole point of the p project was to show how many scientists disagreed with the standard model (even though the standard model presented isn’t actually the standard model….) so the signatories are relevant seeing as that was the whole point in the first place.

To humour you, here’s a few problems with the PP.

1. It’s an article, not a scientific paper.
2. It defines global warming as “increases in Earth's atmospheric and surface temperatures, with disastrous environmental consequences", which would be fine if that’s what any of the scientific papers on global warming say or assume. Even with such an extreme statement they still could only get a few dodgy signatories.
3. The article says the temperature had cooled since 1979. Which is just wrong. Here’s a nice picture showing that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png


But you seem to think this debate is one way, you post a link with no qualification that is an opinion article and then I’m criticised for citing other people (when I didn’t).

Your argument is all over the place and full of issues that just aren’t part of the debate. I’m sorry if you’re unhappy that I don’t entertain these. But you don’t know what a fossil fuel is, but seem to think this is relevant to the debate just because T Rex isn’t at the bottom of an oil well.

You bring in air conditioning when that wasn’t mentioned anywhere.

Yes there is a green agenda that’s why I made it clear I strongly disagree with the likes of Al Gore and his kind and the IPCC. I strongly disagree that people have made political careers out of this because it’s them that are spewing the hyperbole and discrediting a whole body of science as a result.

But how is that relevant to seeing how Ireland can reduce it’s reliance on fossil fuels where we can. But you leap from the green agenda to air con. It’s irrelevant to this debate here and now.

Ok the basic in a nutshell stuff:

CO2 emissions haven’t been this high for at least 650,000 years (ice core data which is pretty accurate). Other less reliable sources put this towards 2 million years, but we don’t use that figure as we’ve yet to be convinced that the data is sound. Now in that time there’s been volcanoes and plenty of other natural disasters, some big ones too, and yet the levels have never been this high.

We can only accurately state on the basis of the last 20 years, but 75% of those emissions are of human origin. So as far as we know, we have the highest levels for 650,000 years and 75% of that in recent times is human in origin.

We can also extrapolate this back a bit too. We’ve been very lucky during our existence as a species because the Earth has been fairly geographically quiet. The net effect if all was well and we weren’t around, the carbon cycle should be in the “negative”. But it isn’t and the sharp rise correlates (is as much as we can state) to human activity.

We also know and can test and can replicate the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere just as we can with many gases. Get the molecules excited while they sit in the atmosphere and they move about generating heat. It’s a well know effect, the Greenhouse effect has been a scientific principle and tested as such long before any of this controversy.

Look again at the data supporting AGW “very likely caused by”, etc. It’s flowery, but it’s based on the fact that having eliminated the alternatives, the only reasonable conclusion left is that the current levels of CO2 and the subsequent warming are linked to human activity. Outside of that you’re right, but I’ve also said, it’s pure speculation. We just don’t know.

As I said, there’s plenty we don’t know. We just can’t complete an accurate model of a climate as there’s too much that has to be modelled in. Even something as simple as clouds would require more computing power to add into the modelling than we’re likely to see before 2020. Even then it’ll be a fool’s errand as clouds don’t confirm to modelling. At a simple level, the pattern of smoke from a cigarette is completely random and can’t be modelled, it’s similar (well not really) for clouds.

Here’s where most of the contradictory evidence is coming from:

1. The effects. Al Gore predicts New York to be the new Atlantis. Al Gore is wrong and only the BBC and Green Party agree with him. Predictions vary because it’s difficult to predict, but the average keeps getting gradually warmer and a big concern is we just don’t know what the effect will be. However, the opposite side tend to over egg the Al Gore stuff as being the scientific consensus when it just isn’t.
2. Small points of data. Some of the earlier models were wrong. They had some dates as warm when they were cold (and vice versa). However, outside those involved in climategate, when these were pointed out (lot of work over at Climate Audit), the data was corrected. But guess what? It didn’t actually change the overall picture of an upward trend. However, it comes down to this being based on an average and the average is up. There will always be variables, there will always be exceptions to the rule. When it’s cold, the opposers stand up and ask “what global warming”, when a penguin dies, the fundamentalists cry that it’s due to global warming.
3. Data collection. The data are pieced together from various sources and from various means of measuring, this is where Climategate annoyed me because they chose not to accept the margins of error in this combined model. It will always be a bone of contention as a result. If they’d been straight up and stated what everyone knew anyway, it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s not perfect, but then it’s the best measure we will ever get without the invention of time travel.


You seem to feel this is a means to preserve the status quo, sit and wait? I feel it’s an opportunity, first for socio-economic reasons, to seek means of reducing the countries reliance on fossil fuels. It makes economic sense for everyone.

Yes houses should be more efficient at conserving heat. Simply, the householder saves money. I don’t feel we should preserve all “traditional trades” just because they’re traditional. The Peat Industry has been superficially propped up as a result. But building techniques change all the time, builders either keep up or lose out.

 

[PyritePete]

I am sensing an Eamo & Gilesie disagreement of opinions here, of course I am not saying who is Eamo !!

The manipulation of data from ClimateGate, the constant bombardment of powerful images of the weather over the last year or so from tv mainly Sky, the 100,000 or so large plasma tv's bought over the last few months/years & what if people leave the red light on or on any appliance, the tree huggers who put stickers on 4x4's in Dublin or wherever just because they are 4x4's and not have a clue about emissions, the looks you get if you have a different opinion to what's out there... etc

As is always the case, the biggest casualty is the truth.

 

[haminka1]

actually, global warming for Ireland will mean a new Ice Age, because the Golf Stream will disappear ...
i'm just deeply allergic to the words "arctic" temperatures - what's outside i'd call a normal winter day elswhere in continental Europe it's just really unusual for Ireland ..

 

[censuspro]

Do you have a source for that , I understood that tempatures have been static of the last 10 years.

Temperatures have actually decreased, the polar bear population has increased despite climatologists stating that they were endanger of becoming extinct due to global warming and there are more glaciers in the ocean today than there was 15 years ago.

If the temperature gets cold, climatologists call it a "weather", If the temperature gets warm it's called climate change.

 

[Tinker Bell]

One of the most interesting threads for a long time IMHO

 

[Latrade]

Temperatures have actually decreased, the polar bear population has increased despite climatologists stating that they were endanger of becoming extinct due to global warming and there are more glaciers in the ocean today than there was 15 years ago.

If the temperature gets cold, climatologists call it a "weather", If the temperature gets warm it's called climate change.

Do you have data to show temperature decrease and over what period of time. Every single measurement of temperature shows an increase, even the most hardened opposition don't deny there is warming, they only dispute either the cause or the estimated effect.

As to polar bears, it depends on what population you consider. As an aside, I hate the way every time GW is mentioned the media trot out a picture or footage of a polar bear. However, of the known populations, about a third don't have enough data to say whether they're increasing or decreasing, about half are definitely in decline and only one population was found to be increasing (the remainder are stable).

But it depends on where the population are located, so you could just cherry pick the one increased population and say this disproves everything if you wish. Those populations that are located at the southern edge of the ice sheets are in decline as those ice sheets are retreating. That is pretty much indisputable. Not only are their numbers decreasing but the size of the bears are also decreasing, so they're getting skinnier too and there's a much greater morbidity rate in the cubs.

These populations have the most data and research as they're nearer to human populations and so have been studied for a long time to greater accuracy. As the ice sheet has retreated, the populations have decreased.

As for more glaciers in water, that would actually be a huge concern as glaciers are a land based mass, so to find they're now moving over water would indicate a massive problem.

 

[Caveat]

actually, global warming for Ireland will mean a new Ice Age, because the Golf Stream will disappear ...
i'm just deeply allergic to the words "arctic" temperatures - what's outside i'd call a normal winter day elswhere in continental Europe it's just really unusual for Ireland ..

This is it.

Does anyone dispute that the polar caps are melting/receeding and at an increased rate? I think this has been accepted as fact - no?

That being the case, the result for Ireland will indeed eventually be much colder winters. As Haminka says, it is the gulf stream that moderates Ireland's climate.

A common barstool 'theory' is that melting ice caps will lead to a dramatic rise in water levels. The much more likely outcome is that the dilution of the Atlantic sea water caused by the introduction of millions of tonnes of fresh ice cap water will reduce the salt content sufficiently to disrupt or even stop the gulf stream. It has already been affected AFAIK.

Without the influence of the gulf stream we will have much longer winters and with temperatures similar to North Ontario: about -20C.

But sure they can survive and so will we.

 

[Latrade]

This is it.

Does anyone dispute that the polar caps are melting/receeding and at an increased rate? I think this has been accepted as fact - no?

That being the case, the result for Ireland will indeed eventually be much colder winters. As Haminka says, it is the gulf stream that moderates Ireland's climate.

A common barstool 'theory' is that melting ice caps will lead to a dramatic rise in water levels. The much more likely outcome is that the dilution of the Atlantic sea water caused by the introduction of millions of tonnes of fresh ice cap water will reduce the salt content sufficiently to disrupt or even stop the gulf stream. It has already been affected AFAIK.

Without the influence of the gulf stream we will have much longer winters and with temperatures similar to North Ontario: about -20C.

But sure they can survive and so will we.

This hypothesis is still parked in the "maybe" pile. We just don't know what will happen and to be honest some of the propositions contradict each other.

This seems one of the estimates that has stuck, but outside the media, it really doesn't have strong support. There just isn't enough evidence to either say it can happen in the first place (it's unlikely there's enough fresh water ice to cause such a dilution) and if dilution can happen, how this can then effect the warm currents (it's strongly disputed as to whether the currents can actually be "turned off").

As with a lot of things to do with GW, it was one report that proposed this and even with numerous reports disputing the original, it's the original that's stuck.

I remember one episode of Horizon giving the "effects of GW" and pushing this theory. Ok, maybe for a discussion, but the programme presented it as fact. The funniest thing was that they had pictures of modern day London with a glacier bearing down on it, almost as if next year we'll have a new ice age.

Even if this hypothesis is correct, it'd take at least 5000 years for an ice sheet to even form let alone get all the way down to London. Ah well, some artistic licence I suppose.

 

[shanegl]

Looking at the weather patterns for a small island and then wondering where the "global" warming is, very funny!

The clue is in the title: GLOBAL!

 

[Firefly]

This is it.

Does anyone dispute that the polar caps are melting/receeding and at an increased rate? I think this has been accepted as fact - no?

That being the case, the result for Ireland will indeed eventually be much colder winters. As Haminka says, it is the gulf stream that moderates Ireland's climate.

A common barstool 'theory' is that melting ice caps will lead to a dramatic rise in water levels. The much more likely outcome is that the dilution of the Atlantic sea water caused by the introduction of millions of tonnes of fresh ice cap water will reduce the salt content sufficiently to disrupt or even stop the gulf stream. It has already been affected AFAIK.

Without the influence of the gulf stream we will have much longer winters and with temperatures similar to North Ontario: about -20C.

But sure they can survive and so will we.

Skiiing on the Galtees I tell ya!