BF2S Forums global warming

can somebody point out what part of a warm planet is dangerous to us?

and before anybody posts it, no the earth will not becoem a desert from global warming. basically the hotter the earth, the more water evapourates the more it rains. the only way we'll turn into a desert is if we have another ice age when all of the potential rain will be frozen.

can somebody also point out on the graph mid way through the last page where we are making the global temp change far quicker than it ever has?

Last edited by Cheeky_Ninja06 (2006-10-08 15:45:26)

its alright the "warm periods" last for about 100 million years.....not 40 :p

DocZ wrote:

There is and has always been an upward trend in temp, followed by a downward trend....
No, I am not denying the fact that nowadays this trend is going faster than previous ones.  But we simply say that it is the natural way of things...  Rise in temp followed by fall in temp...  It is a threat to mankind's society as it exists today, but we will survive...  Our ancestors survived global warming and ice ages before, so why can't we..?  The earth's atmosphere will recuperate in time...

I simply meant to say there are far worse and bigger threats to survival than global warming: asteroid impact (four times more likely to occur than getting struck by lightning - TRUE FACT), cooling down of earth's core (which IS happening), Supervolcanoes (like Yellowstone park, which is in fact one large supervolcano), repolarisation of north and south poles (which has occurred in history multiple times before), ...

Do you understand what a "rate" is? or havent you done change over time yet? As it stands the rate at which our temperature is changing is at a highest rate ever, that is NOT natural. The cooling of the core isnt a threat even in the next 10 million years, supervolcanoes are directly related to global warming as the gas they give out blankets the Ozone layer keeping heat in, repolerisation hasnt happened in a couple hundred million years and isnt due for a couple hundred million more. The only thing about our whole planet that is changing so fast that it may affect the next couple generations is global warming. Why even debate things like the poles switching and the core cooling when there is NOTHING we can do about it anyway, we can only help to reduce global warming.

In reply to that graph being shown... If we increased the amounts of CO2 back to pre jurasic era's we would all die and probably very fast. So that graph isnt realy relavent and please stop saying that its ok for us to increase CO2 hugely as its not a risk.

Last edited by Vilham (2006-10-10 02:29:43)

I think what it illustrates best is that the avg. temp is about 22c , whereas today it is only 12c, from looking at it, it is a logical conclusion that the temp will shoot back up to that.

and you could argue that it has increased 10 in 1 year as the line is vertical obviously thats a bit extreme but yes point taken its too small to accurately decide rate of change.

It also shows the co2 is not the key factor in global temp. sure it may effect it but it is not directly responsible.

My view is that we are not totally responsible for global warming. It is happening, and i think it would continue to happen even if we removed all traces of pollutants from the ground and atmosphere. I think that global warming is a good thing as historically when the temp is higher the environment flourishes.

I think that instead of conducting all these global warming surveys and ways to reduce emissions, we should focus more on alternative fuels. As oil is not sustainable in the longer term, it also is extremely damaging when spilled. 

I am pro-recycling etc i just disagree when anybody says that we can possibly control the earths climate when we cannot accurately predict the weather...

Last edited by Cheeky_Ninja06 (2006-10-10 10:52:22)

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

I think what it illustrates best is that the avg. temp is about 22c , whereas today it is only 12c, from looking at it, it is a logical conclusion that the temp will shoot back up to that.

and you could argue that it has increased 10 in 1 year as the line is vertical obviously thats a bit extreme but yes point taken its too small to accurately decide rate of change.

It also shows the co2 is not the key factor in global temp. sure it may effect it but it is not directly responsible.

My view is that we are not totally responsible for global warming. It is happening, and i think it would continue to happen even if we removed all traces of pollutants from the ground and atmosphere. I think that global warming is a good thing as historically when the temp is higher the environment flourishes.

I think that instead of conducting all these global warming surveys and ways to reduce emissions, we should focus more on alternative fuels. As oil is not sustainable in the longer term, it also is extremely damaging when spilled. 

I am pro-recycling etc i just disagree when anybody says that we can possibly control the earths climate when we cannot accurately predict the weather...

Do you understand that a 10 degree change in as small a time as a couple hundred years would kill of nearly every single form as life as they wouldnt have time to evolve to such a change, if you put any animal in an enviroment that is 10 degrees more it would kill them in a matter of days as they continuously would have to sweat and drink just to stay alive, most plants would just wilt as they wouldnt cope with that increase in water need. As to not being able to predict weather... you clearly know nothing on the subject, they are machines that can work out the weather in the next few months down to nearly 1% error, the reason we dont do that is because that most changes in weather are irrelivent and arent worth using a super computer to spend days calculating these tiny changes.

Just a side note to people, everyone on this website who debates should read A Short History of Nearly Everything. This book atleast gives you a small amount of base knowledge on nearly every scientific area rather than you just talking about things you know nothing about.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

bertster7 wrote:

The temperature being higher is not a good thing. It leads to glaciers melting, which they are doing. Glacial melting in the Himalayas is serious, since almost half the worlds population gets their drinking water from them.

glaciers melting frees up more of the worlds water so it can rain, be absorbed by animals and plants etc etc.

bertster7 wrote:

The arctic melting won't be good either since it will accelerate the rising sea temperatures. Eventually sea levels will rise,

But if temperature is increasing then more water evaporates, so more water in the atmosphere...but yes eventually sea levels will probably rise.

bertster7 wrote:

how soon is a matter of much debate, but it could cause huge social and political problems. That will be the real devastation from global warming, political problems, loads of refugees from flooded cities and drought many regions.

but overall there will be fewer drought regions then currently exist:

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3914 … mod7ry.gif

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/6213 … 6pn3oh.gif

As you can see, the warmer the earth has got the smaller the regions of desert and the larger the forested areas

The only reason flood will be a problem will be because people chop all the trees down and stop the forest growing as it has done on the above pictures. When this happens they have only themselves to blame.

Vilham wrote:

Do you understand that a 10 degree change in as small a time as a couple hundred years would kill of nearly every single form as life as they wouldn't have time to evolve to such a change, if you put any animal in an environment that is 10 degrees more it would kill them in a matter of days as they continuously would have to sweat and drink just to stay alive,

If you get a freshwater aquarium, and put some goldfish in it, then over the next week slowly raise the temperature from 12/13 - 25c they are perfectly healthy . However I'm sure that fish make up a tiny percentage of animals on the planet.

Lets focus purely on the temperature issue here. If the avg. temp of england rose by 10 degrees, so from 30 to 40c in summer and from 0 to 10c in winter, over a period of 200 years, i do not think this would kill everybody on england. I may be wrong of course. so lets look at the last sentence: If you put an animal in an environment that is 10c higher....so if i go from outside at say 15c to inside my home at 25c, then stayed inside, i would die within a few days? as i would be continuously sweating and needing to drink.

Ill take this opportunity to remind you that a higher temperature means more fresh water available for the planet. Also I would have said that you would need to drink more in "extreme desert" than in "closed forest."
So if we refer to the above diagrams (from Darth fledgers previous posts on page 12) you will notice that there is more desert when more water is frozen at the poles.

Lol, reading your stuff is funny as hell. Ofcourse humans wont die from the temperature change, that is due to the fact that we have pretty much risen above evolution, humans havent encountered any evolutionary cases where we NEEDED to change to survive because we just invent machines to help us survive, however incase you hadnt noticed we are the only species on earth that is that clever, thus if other animals die due to not being able to adapt that possibly minor cases causes huge changes to ecosystems causing more species to die out and thus the chain goes on.

Im amazed by how nieve you are. How can you genuinely believe that a temperature change of 10 degrees over a couple hundred years could be good? How can you genuinely believe that the glaciers and poles melting is good when huge areas if population live under even the current sea levels?

An increase in temperature will do hardly anything in terms of increased evaporation compared to the amount of water it will unlock from glaciers and the poles.

Cheeky_Ninja please go finish your education before posting here again, i realy am not happy to see that my taxes are being wasted on you.

everyone complains and there are still a majority of single passenger cars on the road everyday.  oh yeah, i do carpool. a viable mass transit system is being built and i will use it when available.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

cheeky wrote:

....so if i go from outside at say 15c to inside my home at 25c, then stayed inside, i would die within a few days? as i would be continuously sweating and needing to drink.

vilham wrote:

we just invent machines to help us survive, however in case you hadn't noticed we are the only species on earth that is that clever, thus if other animals die due to not being able to adapt that possibly minor cases causes huge changes to ecosystems causing more species to die out and thus the chain goes on.

which machine did i invent in the above to help me survive indoors again?

Also there is not 1 chance that global warming will wipe out all life on earth. No hope. for starters look at the earths past.....when do the majority of extinctions occur? in the ice ages or in the warm periods?

1.Did the dinosaurs die out during the beginning of :
a) An ice age
b) a warm period

2.Did the other species of man become extinct during:
a)An ice age
b) A warm period

i could go on but I'm sure you get the idea...

oh and i almost missed this:

vilham wrote:

and the majority of species on life die just like they did in the last ice age, and that wasn't even a fast one.

see really you do know that cold = bad and warm = good

Anyway lets go back to that useless graph i like to quote:

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/46/g … co21uu.gif

above is the graph found by Mr fleder.

vilham wrote:

In reply to that graph being shown... If we increased the amounts of CO2 back to pre jurasic era's we would all die and probably very fast. So that graph isnt realy relavent and please stop saying that its ok for us to increase CO2 hugely as its not a risk.

wiki wrote:

Carbon dioxide content in fresh air varies and is between 0.03% (300 ppm) to 0.06% (600 ppm), depending on location and in exhaled air approximately 4.5%. When inhaled in high concentrations (greater than 5% by volume), it is immediately dangerous to the life and health of plants, humans and other animals. The current threshold limit value (TLV) or maximum level that is considered safe for healthy adults for an 8-hour work day is 0.5% (5000 ppm).

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential for plant growth. In an enclosed growing area, as plants use up available CO2, their growth will slow down and may eventually stop. Replenishing CO2 will not only maintain growth but dramatically increase it. The average level of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 350 PPM [parts per million]. Through years of agreed upon practice, the optimum level is in the 1000-1500 PPM range. At these levels it is not uncommon to realise a 25-40% increase in yield.

Its not until the Ordovician that co2 levels would kill us all very fast. From the above i dont see why an increase in atmospheric co2 levels from 380ppm to 1500ppm  would be a bad thing. As its not at a level to be dangerous to us and plants love it giving up to a 40% higher yield...

now lets pretend humans had never evolved, so there isn't any of the man made pollution.... Which of the below do you think is more likely.....

http://xs307.xs.to/xs307/06410/GWPREDICT1.gif

or

http://xs307.xs.to/xs307/06410/GWPREDICT2.gif

I would have thought the 2nd graph a more logical continuation. The point of that simple exercise was that We do not have ability or the technology to control the global climate even if we had never released any of these "green house gases". the temperature is still logically going to return to its historical average.


On a side not of my own:

vilham wrote:

Do you understand what a "rate" is? or haven't you done change over time yet?

vilham wrote:

... you clearly know nothing on the subject,

vilham wrote:

Just a side note to people, everyone on this website who debates should read A Short History of Nearly Everything. This book at least gives you a small amount of base knowledge on nearly every scientific area rather than you just talking about things you know nothing about.

vilham wrote:

Lol, reading your stuff is funny as hell.

vilham wrote:

Im amazed by how nieve you are. How can you genuinely believe that a temperature change of 10 degrees over a couple hundred years could be good? How can you genuinely believe that the glaciers and poles melting is good when huge areas if population live under even the current sea levels?

vilham wrote:

Cheeky_Ninja please go finish your education before posting here again, i realy am not happy to see that my taxes are being wasted on you.

Is insulting my intelligence furthering your argument or just your e-penis ?

Well to question 1. you can clearly see that they died in a WARM period, just look at your own graph!

What helped you survive at all is Shelter... Something that humans have used to their advantage and that most animals dont use. Then theres all the things that were made living in shelter easier that we invented, eg central heating.

Do you also understand that periods of increased warmth lead directly to ice ages. I hope you also know that the blanket of CO2 can become so thick that it stops the suns warmth even entering our atmosphere thus causing an ice age.

As to warm = good... you know what follows a warm front?

Its not the inhalation of CO2 that would kill us... at no point did i even suggest that.

Ofcourse graph 2 is more likely. However that change is over a period of millions of years. Do you understand that in the last 400 years we have increased the temperature by 2 degrees. That kind of change normally takes 25 million years. HOW CAN YOU CONTINUE TO CLAIM WE HAVENT CHANGED THE GLOBAL TEMP???

To quote 1, that was because you were unable to understand what one of the other posters was talking about when he was talking about rates.
To quote 2, you claiming that we havent change the global temp when even car companies are admitting to it now shows that you know very little on the subject.
To quote 3, that wasnt even directed at you.
To quote 4, reading your stuff IS as funny as hell, ie not funny but depressing that you can even believe what you are writing.
To quote 5, some huge proportion of the worlds population lives below the current sea level and an increase would see them killed, London would be entirely flooded and we wouldnt have a capital.
To quote 6, the only way you could come back at that was by highlighting a typo, I also cant beleve that you have even finished your GCSE's yet based on what you have said.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

Animals don't use shelter. wtf? where do bats sleep? oh yeah they just lie on the floor don't they? where do birds make their nests? where do bears hibernate? where do hedgehogs live? where do rats live? where do mice live? where do otters live? where do beavers live? All animals use shelter.

The point was it was 10c hotter and i did not feel any ill effects. I did not need to create a machine to allow me to survive the temp rise.



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e … arison.png

The reconstructions used, in order from oldest to most recent publication are:

   1. (dark blue 1000-1991): P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett, and S.F.B. Tett (1998). "High-resolution Palaeoclimatic Records for the last Millennium: Interpretation, Integration and Comparison with General Circulation Model Control-run Temperatures". The Holocene 8: 455-471.
   2. (blue 1000-1980): M.E. Mann, R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes (1999). "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations". Geophysical Research Letters 26 (6): 759-762.
   3. (light blue 1000-1965): Crowley and Lowery (2000). "Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction". Ambio 29: 51-54. Modified as published in Crowley (2000). "Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years". Science 289: 270-277.
   4. (lightest blue 1402-1960): K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, F.H. Schweingruber, I.C. Harris, P.D. Jones, S.G. Shiyatov, S.G. and E.A. Vaganov (2001). "Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree-ring density network". J. Geophys. Res. 106: 2929-2941.
   5. (light green 831-1992): J. Esper, E.R. Cook, and F.H. Schweingruber (2002). "Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability". Science 295 (5563): 2250-2253.
   6. (yellow 200-1980): M.E. Mann and P.D. Jones (2003). "Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia". Geophysical Research Letters 30 (15): 1820. DOI:10.1029/2003GL017814 .
   7. (orange 200-1995): P.D. Jones and M.E. Mann (2004). "Climate Over Past Millennia". Reviews of Geophysics 42: RG2002. DOI:10.1029/2003RG000143
   8. (red-orange 1500-1980): S. Huang (2004). "Merging Information from Different Resources for New Insights into Climate Change in the Past and Future". Geophys. Res Lett. 31: L13205. DOI:10.1029/2004GL019781
   9. (red 1-1979): A. Moberg, D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén (2005). "Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data". Nature 443: 613-617. DOI:10.1038/nature03265
  10. (dark red 1600-1990): J.H. Oerlemans (2005). "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records". Science 308: 675-677. DOI:10.1126/science.1107046

(black 1856-2004): Instrumental data was jointly compiled by the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre. Global Annual Average data set TaveGL2v [2] was used.

vilham wrote:

Do you understand that in the last 400 years we have increased the temperature by 2 degrees.

First off 400 years ago we were in the little ice age, which was a period of remarkable coldness. Secondly, that graph shows 11 surveys from various sources and they all only indicate a maximum change of +1.2c in the last 400 years. So if we ignore the LIA and carry on from the previous temp then we have enforced a change of 0.4c. There is also this little thing called the medieval warm period that you should read up on...

vilham wrote:

Do you also understand that periods of increased warmth lead directly to ice ages. I hope you also know that the blanket of CO2 can become so thick that it stops the suns warmth even entering our atmosphere thus causing an ice age.

Prove that an ice age is a direct result of a warm period. The blanket of co2 is so thick that the sun cant get through? What a load of rubbish. Prove it. Wait a second CO2 is now causing hyper global warming and ice ages ?

From looking at the evidence it would be more realstic to say that ice ages lead directly to warm periods, thus global warming is good, as is an inc. in CO2

At least your argument is consistent and full of evidence.

Does most mean anything to you?? Do you understand the word.

Im not the one who is going against what the majority of proffesionals are saying, im not gunna go photo copy articals from a newspaper just to try and convert you, i dont mind if your a fool, its your own choice.

You also ignore the black line... the one carried out by the most proficient from the list, ie not carried out by just 1 person but by an orgainisation that focus's on temp and weather changes.

A blanket of CO2 is what allowed this planet to cool down and turn from a molten lump into what it is today. This is stuff they teach you in GCSE geography for christs sake, you must know that.

Last edited by Vilham (2006-10-15 11:17:11)

As vilham has not put down one valid point but instead chose to grow his e-penis, ill move on to bertster.

TBH mate, most of what i wrote was of rather poor quality and not up to your standard of debate. So...

The first point. I agree that the graph is rather useless for actual use. If you look at the other instances the rate of change is usually much quicker than the "prediction" that i drew. What is curious to me is that no matter how extreme the rate the temperature levels off at about 22c.

Yes i also agree that 0.5c in 100 years is a lot, but then again if you look at the silly graph there are a few instances where the temp has increased ~5c in 1million years. So i do not think that humans are directly to blame for global warming. I do not disagree its happening or that it is happening fairly quickly, but i do disagree with the media hype saying "if we don't stop adding 0.0112% to the atmospheric co2 levels we will all die."

The example was showing that i came from the cold outside (10c ish) into the warm building (20c ish) and i did not die due to the temperature being to high. Contrary to Vilhams belief that if you put any animal or person in an environment that was 10c hotter it would instantly die due to dehydration. I do not dispute that the room was hotter. The fact that the room was 10c hotter than outside was the point.

bertster wrote:

Interesting to see that you know more about how the other species of man, by which I assume you mean Neanderthals, and how they died out than most experts. Their extinction I believe is usually attributed to diet (they liked eating meat). The last Neanderthal civilization was based in Gibraltar, which was warmer than where the more successful Europeans were based.

I do not pretend to know a great deal about Neanderthals and their kin. However my limited understanding was that as we entered the last ice age, competition between the species of man caused the extinctions. I understood that the Neanderthals were a stronger species than our selves, but lacked some of the intelligence. Thus when food became scarce and the temperatures plummeted we managed to scrape through and they didn't. However it is obviously a rather Grey area for myself.

bertster wrote:

The dinosaurs, it is commonly believed, where wiped out by a comet. Not by it getting a bit colder.

Last I read the meteorite did not in itself kill all of the dinosaurs. The article presented the meteorite as the "final straw" that finished them off as they were already in decline. So yes it is true that the ice age did not cause the extinction, it may however have finished off the last few survivors. Again the point I was trying to make was that as a rule more animals survive global warming than survive an ice age.  It has been said before that the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were both very warm and abundant in life.

berster wrote:

10 C, that's a lot. You live in the UK which has a very moderate climate. If you lived somewhere with a hot climate the difference would be unbearable. In hot countries it can quite often, in summer, reach temperatures of about 45C, if you turn that into 55C almost every animal and plant in the region will die. That is just too hot.

again you make a very valid point. One which, tbh i don't have an answer for. Other than that the majority of the earths time has been spent at 22c which is about 10c hotter than today. Also historically both plant and animal life has bloomed in these higher temperatures. I can only assume that the higher temperature is not everyplace on the earth increasing by 10c, but the poles increasing by a lot in relation to the rest of the world. I imagine that once all of the ice has melted the temperatures to the north and the south will climb rapidly resulting in a globe with fewer temperature extremes. Again this is merely my own thinking and i have no evidence to support it.

bertster wrote:

Animals are already dying as a result of global warming. There have been the first ever cases of Polar Bears dying by drowning. Since the ice caps are now so melted they have to swim vast distances between them to find food.

This is of course another valid point, however add to this the fact that other animals are thriving. As an example over the last 4 years in England, we had a bloom of aphids, followed by a bloom of ladybirds, followed by hover flies, and now we have hundreds of crane flies. The reasoning behind these population explosions are mainly due to having very wet and very dry weather at just the right times. We also have an abundance of autumn fruits this year due to the same reason. To add to this in the last five years dolphins have found their way over to wales and Cornwall. They now regularly return every year, and the whale visits are becoming more common. As well as this we have been seeing egrets (spelling?) quite commonly. These have very rarely been seen before in England. My father has gone from seeing 1 in his life time to seeing 10 this year. All in all our wildlife appears to be largely benefiting from the rising temperatures.

Very few animals do not have a den, or a hidden nest etc. Big cats often sit in the shade of trees and rocks in Africa. Many animals hide their young in some form of shelter.

bertster wrote:

No one, at least no one with any sense, is questioning the fact that there are naturally occurring cycles of global warming. The big problem is the rate, which has recently massively increased. Looking at all available evidence it seems highly probable that this increased rate is caused by increased human population. Carbon emissions being a harmful by-product of this increased population. As carbon levels have risen, temperatures have increased proportionally, over a considerable period of time.

The problem is that at the moment we can not tell what the rate would be if we were not here. Scientists have not yet been able to accurately tell which effects can be contributed to us and which would be occurring naturally. The IPCC report concluded that when all of the evidence is taken into account it suggests that we have had an impact upon the climate, however they do not know how significant it is.

I remain unconvinced that co2 is the main reason for climate change. I mean lets look back at the useless graph:

the temperature is 22c when CO2 = 7000ppm and still 22c when CO2=1000ppm sure it is increasing at the same time as the temperature at the moment, but i do not think it is the main cause of the warming otherwise on the silly graph, there would be a better correlation between temperature and CO2.

Last edited by Cheeky_Ninja06 (2006-10-15 15:55:18)

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

I remain unconvinced that co2 is the main reason for climate change. I mean lets look back at the useless graph:

There are many better graphs you could be looking at. I'll have a look and see if I can find a few. Over the past century as carbon levels have risen so have temperatures - the change has been directly proportional. That is simple fact. What you need to be looking at are recent graphs that overlay carbon emissions and temperature increases. You can see the link when you look at them, the simillarities are too great to be coincidence.

Increased human population is another important factor. As is deforestation.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

So i do not think that humans are directly to blame for global warming. I do not disagree its happening or that it is happening fairly quickly, but i do disagree with the media hype saying "if we don't stop adding 0.0112% to the atmospheric co2 levels we will all die."

Actually the media 'hype' is not geared that way at all. If you look at the numbers of scientific research papers that disagree that global warming is a threat and caused by humans, you will find the number to be far, far lower than the number of media articles that pretend global warming and human contributions to it is all just a myth to scare us. The scientists believe it's happening, the media are the ones who are unconvinced.

I do get what you mean about the whole "if we don't stop adding 0.0112% to the atmospheric co2 levels we will all die.", it's not going to happen (also the percentages you've quoted don't look very accurate to me) - we're not all going to die, of course not (well, maybe - but that would be indirect). The only way I can forsee global warming killing everyone would be through wars started about scarcity of water - which would be more scare. Precipitation would most likely increase, but experts seem to agree that it would result in more extreme rainfall which is not good from a drinking water or agricultural perspective. Glaciers melting means that places like Asia and Africa - the two biggest continents in the world would suffer from horrible drought. These areas are notoriously unstable and wars for water would be quite possible. A 'Day After Tomorrow' scenario is never going to happen though - that's not what global warming will do and it was a shit film.

Water vapour eh?

While water vapour represents about two-thirds of the natural greenhouse gases, changes in its concentrations are determined primarily by changes in atmospheric temperature and related effects on the hydrological cycle. As increases in other greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere and surface, the amount of water vapour also increases, amplifying the initial warming effect of the other greenhouse gases.
Most scientists agree that the overall effect of the direct and indirect feedbacks caused by increased water vapour content of the atmosphere significantly enhances the initial warming that caused the increase - that is, it is a strong positive feedback. However, the magnitude of this effect depends on where the increases take place within the atmosphere. If these occur in atmospheric regions where air is already near saturation levels, the additional effect is small. If, on the other hand, it occurs in dry air like that over deserts or in the upper troposphere, the effect can be very large.

Water vapour is not directly comparable to other greenhouse gases. Nor does it actually contribute 95% towards greenhouse effects. The study this claim comes from is here. It isn't actually right. It uses combined cloud and water vapour and simply isn't right. In fact it has been shown that water vapour only accounts for between 66 and 85% of the greenhouse effect. These calculations fit in with all other research in the area, whereas the 95% figure simply does not. You can get the source code for the calculations here.

Water vapour has been ruled out as a cause of global warming. Instead it is considered to act as a positive feedback for the process, while the Earth warms, more water vapour means more warming. Just as with the ice caps melting, the process is accelerated.

Many of the scientists you have quoted have been linked with companies who have paid them to express such opinions. Some of the other theories mentioned have been dismissed as redundant in the area of global warming.

based on some proxies of solar activity over the past few centuries

This is an example of an outdated theory that whilst correct in many ways, does not disprove anything to do with global warming.

Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have an effect on global warming.

He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20 years the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.

This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate "the natural factors involved in climate change", he said.

There are many similar statements regarding the issue of sunspots and increased solar activity.

You mentioned Frederick Seitz (who was in the employment of Exxon), who was openly criticised by the NAS for participating centrally in the OISM petition (which was full of shit).

I'm suprised you haven't mentioned Richard Lindzen in your little list of sceptics. He is probably the most credible of the lot. Yet he still makes statements that contradict observation. As do all the global warming sceptics I have read papers by.

Isaac Held of the NOAA had this to say:

Lindzen contends that water vapor and clouds, which will increase in a warmer world because of higher rates of evaporation, create "negative feedbacks" that counter the warming trend.

Lindzen argues that the climate models can't be right, because we've already raised CO2 and methane dramatically, and the planet simply hasn't warmed that much.

But Isaac Held, a NOAA modeler, says Lindzen is jumping the gun, because the greenhouse gases take time — decades, centuries — to have their full impact. Indeed, we've already made a "commitment" to warming. We couldn't stop global warming at this point if we closed every factory and curbed every car.

Held studied under Lindzen years ago and considers him a friend and a smart scientist — but highly contrarian.

"There're people like [Lindzen] in every field of science. There are always people in the fringes."

There's a certain kind of skeptic who has no patience for the official consensus, especially if it has the imprimatur of a government, or worse, the United Nations. They focus on ambiguities and mysteries and things that just don't add up. They say the Official Story can't possibly be true, because it doesn't explain the (insert inexplicable data point here). They set a high standard for reality — it must never be fuzzy around the edges.

I quite like the description for the two (very clearly uneven) sides of the argument published in the Seattle Times:

The case for warming

Human beings are pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, warming the planet in the process.

Since the dawn of the industrial era, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from about 280 to about 380 parts per million. In the past century, the average surface temperature of Earth has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit. Much of that warming has been in the past three decades.

Regional effects can be more dramatic: The Arctic is melting at an alarming rate. Arctic sea ice is 40 percent thinner than it was in the 1970s. Glaciers in Greenland are speeding up as they slide toward the sea. A recent report shows Antarctica losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year.

The permafrost is melting across broad swaths of Alaska, Canada and Siberia. Tree-devouring beetles, common in the American Southwest, are suddenly ravaging the evergreens of British Columbia. Coral reefs are bleaching, scalded by overheated tropical waters. There appear to have been more strong hurricanes and cyclones in recent decades.

The 1990s were the warmest decade on record. The year 1998 set the all-time mark. This decade is on its way to setting a new standard. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a global effort involving hundreds of climate scientists, projected in 2001 that, depending on the rate of greenhouse-gas emissions and general climate sensitivities, the global average temperature would rise 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit between 1990 and 2100. Sea levels could rise just a few inches, or nearly three feet.

All of the above is part of the emerging, solidifying scientific consensus on global warming.

The skeptics' view

When you step into the realm of the skeptics, you find yourself on a parallel Earth.

It is a planet where global warming isn't happening — or, if it is happening, isn't happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn't going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can't realistically do anything about it other than adapt.

There is no consensus on global warming, they say. There is only abundant uncertainty. The IPCC process is a sham, a mechanism for turning vague scientific statements into headline-grabbing alarmism. Drastic actions such as mandated cuts in carbon emissions would be imprudent.

Alternative sources of energy are fine, they say, but let's not be naive. We are an energy-intensive civilization. To obtain the kind of energy we need, we must burn fossil fuels. We must emit carbon. That's the real world.

Since the late 1980s, when oil, gas, coal, auto and chemical companies formed the Global Climate Coalition, industries have poured millions of dollars into a campaign to discredit the emerging global-warming consensus. The coalition disbanded a few years ago, but the skeptic community remains.

Many skeptics work in think tanks, such as the George C. Marshall Institute or the National Center for Policy Analysis. They have the ear of leaders in the White House and on Capitol Hill. The skeptics helped scuttle any possibility that the United States would ratify the Kyoto treaty that would have committed the nation to cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. (Conservatives object to the treaty for, among other things, not requiring reductions by developing nations such as China and India.)

The skeptics point to the global-temperature graph for the past century. Notice how, after rising steadily in the early 20th century, in 1940 the temperature suddenly levels off. No — it goes down! For the next 35 years! If the planet is getting steadily warmer because of Industrial Age greenhouse gases, why did it get cooler when industries began belching out carbon dioxide at full tilt at the start of World War II?

Now look at the ice in Antarctica: Getting thicker in places!

Sea-level rise? It's actually dropping around certain islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans.

There are all these ... anomalies.

The skeptics scoff at climate models. They're just computer programs. They have to interpret innumerable feedback loops, all the convective forces, the evaporation, the winds, the ocean currents, the changing albedo (reflectivity) of Earth's surface, on and on and on.

Last edited by Bertster7 (2006-10-16 05:36:40)

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

no it would not ahve been the same but surely if their avg. temp was 10c higher than ours then their weather must have been amazingly extreme, if you pay attention to the media regarding the predicted extremeties of our weather systems after a few degree rise. (and yes here be sarcasm )

and it wasnt a particularly well thought out point, i was merely indicating the climate was much higher way before we could possibly have had an effect.

Yes the climate iwas much higher then, but they were also adapted for it, and the extreme weather that came with it, but also we must remember this is only scientists predictions and not a truly proven fact. The question is why are people starting to worry when over the last few years the avg. temperature has only gone up by a few degrees, when  years ago it was going up and down in tens and more degrees at the time, the answer is un-known and we will probably never really find the answer.  Quite frankly i feel that although we are seeing signs of global warming now, we must remember NOT to cut down our carbon emissions completely due to the CO2 helps to keep the temperature at its average, the O3 layer is healing itself all fo the time and we shouldn't try to alter it to make it go any faster, but thats my opinion. I am completely open to peoples coments 

(i am sorry for quoting old news but i only joined this week as i stumbled upon this forum by pureluck when researching for my Physics GCSE )

Last edited by smartasskid (2006-11-14 12:23:25)