Global Warming? *What* Global warming?

With all the cold weather across the world and the data scandals, t's the "warming" part of the title a lot of people would have trouble with....

shanegl said:
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!
Click to expand...
 
Ireland gets a rare cold blast with a little bit of snow THEREFORE global warming is not true

Alaska and parts of Canada are having above average temperatures for this winter THEREFORE.... ?? :rolleyes:
 
Latrade said:
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.
Click to expand...

OK, maybe I was a bit too emphatic about the hypothesis - as strictly speaking, that's all it is of course.

But, Is it not a fact that:
  • The ice caps are melting and therefore...
  • ...are diluting/reducing the salt content in the Atlantic
  • The Gulf Stream is dependent on a certain level of salt to function.
Maybe I'm wrong?

The only unknowns/variables as far as I can see are that we don't know exactly at what rate the ice is melting (and in what quantities) and also that we don't know at what 'dilution level' the movement of the Gulf Stream will be seriously affected.

So is it not simply a matter of time? Granted that 'time' may be anything from 20 to a couple of hundred years though...
 
My problem is that all these grand theories are of the Armageddon variety, we never get fixated with a Utopia prediction. From Nostradamus to the Population explosion to Aids to Y2K and now GW we have been obsessed that the end of the world is nigh.

So let's accept that temperatures are rising. I could just as easily construct a Utopia consequence as an Armageddon one, along the lines of the trillions of pounds we spend warming ourselves and sheltering ourselves and taking holidays in the sun - all soon to be a thing of the past as we saunter happily about our daily lives in loin cloths. But Utopia theories don't grip our imagination - we want Armageddon.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
My problem is that all these grand theories are of the Armageddon variety, we never get fixated with a Utopia prediction. From Nostradamus to the Population explosion to Aids to Y2K and now GW we have been obsessed that the end of the world is nigh.

So let's accept that temperatures are rising. I could just as easily construct a Utopia consequence as an Armageddon one, along the lines of the trillions of pounds we spend warming ourselves and sheltering ourselves and taking holidays in the sun - all soon to be a thing of the past as we saunter happily about our daily lives in loin cloths. But Utopia theories don't grip our imagination - we want Armageddon.
Click to expand...


+1 . Our winters are meant to be getting colder - great - skiiing on the Galtees anyone?
 
Caveat said:
OK, maybe I was a bit too emphatic about the hypothesis - as strictly speaking, that's all it is of course.


But, Is it not a fact that:
  • The ice caps are melting and therefore...
  • ...are diluting/reducing the salt content in the Atlantic
  • The Gulf Stream is dependent on a certain level of salt to function.
Maybe I'm wrong?

The only unknowns/variables as far as I can see are that we don't know exactly at what rate the ice is melting (and in what quantities) and also that we don't know at what 'dilution level' the movement of the Gulf Stream will be seriously affected.

So is it not simply a matter of time? Granted that 'time' may be anything from 20 to a couple of hundred years though...
Click to expand...

To an extent yes. But it just hasn't been established yet if it's liekly to happen in this case. Effectively you need every single ice sheet to melt and go to the sea (it'd be warmer so there'd be greater land evaporation for the land ice sheets) even then it's unlikely to be enough for such significant dilution. And this unlikely scenario is based on the temperatures reaching the extreme end and absolute worst case scenario. Again, nobody outside the media really expects it to get anywhere near that.

Speaking of the media, an actual decent article one the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8451756.stm

There's an irony in that the BBC is the worst culprit of linking everything to global warming (though Sky News trumped them when they declared that the Tsunami a few years ago was as a result of global warming).

But, the article pretty much sums up my own views, and it's from a legit climatologist. He doesn't go as far as criticising too harshly the scientists who help fuel the media storm, but he does in a back hand way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top