CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[Stanley]

That thought struck me too Tiz. I read an article not long ago about the increase in the number of times it is closing now and the rising water levels. The conclusion was they need another one or a massive upgrade on the present structure.

[Tizer]

This is a useful review of what's going on in the energy industry in India with some clear data graphics - look at that bar chart showing the increase in coal consumption in India!
`Climate change: Will India's election energy lead to CO2 rise?' LINK

[Stanley]

The sad thing is that we were the same when we were developing so how can we have any moral right to say they are wrong? Nobody told us that 'progress' would eventually make the planet unable to support life. Eventually humanity (and many innocent animal species) will have to die back to the number it can support and it's going to be a long hard road.

[Tizer]

Did you hear those Radio 4 15-minute episodes about how the coal industry knew about the danger of CO2 causing climate change back in the 1950s. They admitted it was happening but nobody did anything about it.

[Stanley]

No I didn't Tiz but I can remember as a lad 75 years ago having to travel from school in the dark in the evening in smog so thick you couldn't see the street light if you were stood directly underneath it and even then I knew it was coal smoke. At around that time we discovered that the reason the Luftwaffe had never hit the viaduct carrying the main West coast railway line over the Mersey Valley in the centre of Stockport was that they couldn't see it because of the pollution.



It didn't take a genius to work out that apart from that happenstance smoke was a bad thing! So it doesn't surprise me that it was recognised 50 years ago but ignored. Think asbestos......

[Whyperion]

Paternal Grandfather died in the 1950s London Smogs. I am finding in rural areas the wood burning is quite noticable even in small amounts in the air, worse when there is a fog. In the 1980s I was living in a small Oxfordshire village and the evening pollution walking back to the farm was worse than I noticed in London.

[Stanley]

Tinsley Viaduct on the old A1 used to have some good ones.....

See THIS BBC report on a study which suggests that sea level rise could be more and faster than previously forecast. The adverse evidence seems to increase daily. The deniers aren't quite as vocal now as they were, I wonder why?

[Tizer]

I reported on OG some time ago that the ozone-depleting CFCs were on the rise again, especially in the Far East. Now there's more evidence. The CFCs destroy the ozone in the upper atmosphere that protects us from UV radiation but they are also responsible for some of the global warming that we see now - they are 5000 times more effective than CO2.
`Ozone layer: Banned CFCs traced to China say scientists' LINK

Meanwhile...
`Letter makes plea to rich over climate' LINK
`Britain’s wealthy elite are being asked to dip deep into their pockets to protect the environment and the climate. A group of scientists has written to the top 100 wealthiest charitable bodies and families to request funding. They say efforts to tackle what they call the ecological crisis are "desperately under-funded"...'
The BBC says: `The top three places in the Sunday Times rich list are taken by billionaires: the Hinduja family; the Reuben brothers and the shale gas magnate Sir Jim Ratcliffe. None has yet responded to our request for comment.'

[Stanley]

I saw the report on that letter also Tiz. I wonder how much response they will get? I suspect not a lot!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the deaths of up to 9,000 tufted puffins on the N American West coast. The Atlantic puffin is already on the danger list. We are losing our wildlife at an unprecedented rate and a major factor is climate warming, in this case sea temperatures driving fish stocks further north.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of the Downing Street reaction to a call by scientists to bring up climate change 'robustly' with Trump citing him as being a danger to the world. It has come to a pretty pass when a challenge like this can be issued to a US President on totally creditable grounds.

[Stanley]

Not quite the right place for this, but it would temporarily change the climate. Have a look at THIS report in the Independent of the confirmation of the largest UK impact site caused by an asteroid in The Minch. Fascinating and right up Tizer's street!

[Tizer]

It happened very early in the history of Earth so there wouldn't have been any animals to witness the event, only simple single-celled organisms living mostly in the oceans. There wouldn't have been any plants on land, let alone trees. A pity the location is now under the sea floor, it makes it harder for the scientists to unravel the details. At that time, about 1200 million years ago, there is thought to have been one single continent. It'll be interesting to see if other scientists can now identify changes in the rocks elsewhere that would have resulted from the impact.

[Stanley]

I was always fascinated by the fact that the Small Isles were the remnants of a Krakatau style eruption. Lots of evidence apparent for it. The Scgurr on Eigg is a volcanic lava flow.....

[Tizer]

The Eigg lava flows are relatively recent, about 60 million years ago, compared with the Minch event 1200 million years ago.

[Tripps]

As I sit here on June 11th - cold- and finally have turned on the central heating, I read this.

I know the 'science is settled', but could what they say here be true?

We are at a (low) solar minimum, and they give a rudimentary demo of how this could affect the jet stream into its current omega shape, which gives rise to the current cold wet spell.

Just asking.

[plaques]

We are at a (low) solar minimum, and they give a rudimentary demo of how this could affect the jet stream into its current omega shape, which gives rise to the current cold wet spell.

The jet stream is no more than a large scale demonstration of quantum mechanics. As you pump more heat absorbing energy, eg: Carbon, into the atmosphere the wave format round the Earth will jump to its next energy level and increase the number of sine wave forms into a fixed diameter. This in turn shifts the jet stream either lifting it or dropping it from its base pattern. The end result is to either lift warm air from the south or push cold air down from the north.
Obviously this is a load of male bovine droppings but that's what you get on Twitter.

[Stanley]

I suspect you're right P to distrust an explanation of the jet stream that starts with the words 'is no more than'. I think David's quotation also has part of the truth. My own feeling is that it is far more complicated than this. Anything to do with a chaotic system like weather usually is!

[Tripps]

I think David's quotation also has part of the truth.

Sadly the whole Government public policy seems to be based on the fact that it has not.

[Tizer]

Let's not confuse weather with climate - and let's not confuse ClimateRealists.com (aka climate deniers) with climate scientists.

[Stanley]

'Deniers'? I thought they had admitted defeat. Evidently not.
David, I don't bother to switch my heating off, just leave the thermostat to make decisions 24X7. If I still feel a chill I put a ganzy on.
The army had a very simple attitude to heating, they had set dates on which the heating season started and finished regardless of the weather. I can remember shivering at Lichfield Barracks with no fires and a white frost. Character forming! At Gatow aerodrome in Berlin the systems were automatic, it used to be a Luftwaffe training school. Double glazed windows and toasty when we got there. And they lost the war....

[chinatyke]

Let's have a look at some facts:
There are roughly 400 parts per million CO₂ in the air. Nature produces 97% of that and human activity is responsible for the other 3%, that's all farming, industry, mining and transport. And the governments of the World are going to tax the hell out of you to reduce your 12 ppm CO₂ contribution by a fraction that isn't significant. It's a good way of raising money!

[plaques]

There are roughly 400 parts per million CO2 in the air. Nature produces 97% of that and human activity is responsible for the other 3%,

Its like peeing in a bucket. When its 97% full you can carry it without filling your shoes, another 3% brings disaster.

[chinatyke]

Exactly what the government want you to believe. They couldn't raise billions without it. I suppose the reduction in CO₂ can't do any harm and the increased revenue will be well spent.

[Tizer]

Let's have a look at some facts:
There are roughly 400 parts per million CO₂ in the air. Nature produces 97% of that and human activity is responsible for the other 3%, that's all farming, industry, mining and transport. And the governments of the World are going to tax the hell out of you to reduce your 12 ppm CO₂ contribution by a fraction that isn't significant. It's a good way of raising money!

That's utter rubbish, China, to say that the human contribution to the atmospheric CO2 level `isn't significant'. It is very significant, as you'd find if you learnt more about how the Earth works. On a global scale, this planet is in a balanced state of natural CO2 inputs and outputs but humans are now pushing it out of balance and even a small rise makes a big difference.