Climate records actually go back thousands of years, using a combination of analysis of sediments in swedish lakes and polar ice cores. The problem is not that the earth is warming, but it is warming at a far faster rate than ever before. It is not natural climate shift.
(redexile, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 19:32, 1 reply)

Hmmn, yes and no
Here's Wikipedia on the Younger Dryas period

"Measurements of oxygen isotopes from the GISP2 ice core suggest the ending of the Younger Dryas took place over just 40 – 50 years in three discrete steps, each lasting five years. Other proxy data, such as dust concentration, and snow accumulation, suggest an even more rapid transition, requiring about a 7 °C (12.60 °F) warming in just a few years.[6][7][19][20] Total warming was 10 ± 4 °C (18 ± 7 °F)"

This was thousands of years ago, they don't know why it happened, and it was more rapid and of much greater magnitude than anything we've witnessed thus far.

So no, it's not a far faster rate of change than ever before though it is fast. And because such rapid shifts do occur means that it's not 100% certain that we're to blame for this one, though the evidence points that way.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 19:54, closed)

I think it's probably best to be on the safe side, considering the circumstances.
"Oh well it might not be us, so let's just assume it isn't and carry on burning shit up."
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:17, closed)

Well, we should have been looking at alternative energy sources
for a long time, simply because of damaging pollution from fossils, let alone any warming that may be being caused by emissions, so in that sense I agree.

The thing that makes me pause about the climate change issue is the evangelical zeal that surrounds it. I have an inherent mistrust of ideology that becomes entrenched and starts to morph into quasi-religious fervour and climate change proponents are the worst advertisement in favour of their position going.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:24, closed)

That IS EXACTLY my point.
I am open to convincing, just not by these patronizing Toynbeeites and New age mofo's.
(Glucose-Maximus All over the world., Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:25, closed)

If you really want to be convinced, just google it,
there are plenty of resources available online.
See for instance: climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

The New Age folks annoy me too, they always have to make it about Mother Earth and how our Pagan ancestors used to love the forests and tree spirits and shit, and they're frightened of nuclear power because they don't understand it. But there you go.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:36, closed)

Sigh.
Even NASA opens its account with an erroneous argument about CO2 concentration and temperature.

The temperature of the Ordovician Period was an Ice Age. What was atmospheric CO2 concentration? 4400 parts per million or 12 times what we have today. If there is a direct correlation between CO2 concentration and mean temperature, which as I understand it is the central plank of the case for anthropogenic global warming, then it's blown clean out of the water by an analysis that goes back further than the 650,000-800,000 years worth of ice core samples which are most commonly referenced.

And the Ordovician period isn't even the highest CO2 concentration we've come across.

When it talks about the global temperature reconstructions done by computer and mentions predicts based on them, they forget to mention the fact that the margin of error on all of their reconstructions is actually far larger than the rises they are predicting and that if you extrapolate further than they're willing to, beyond 50 years or so, they graphs become absurd.

Climate study is a young science, with more holes in it than in more established branches of science. The stakes are very high and the proponents of both sides are ridiculously shrill and not above bullshitting to make their case.

And when supposedly august organisations like the IPCC actually engage in bullshitting to get across a point that is so serious you wonder why they have to resort to it, if the science is as complete as they claim it is.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:55, closed)

Now I never got the impression they said that temperature is only a function of CO2 levels and nothing else,
but you seem like someone who knows a thing or two.

Let me throw a crazy idea at you just now. A few years ago I calculated that the amount of energy used by mankind every year is enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's entire atmosphere by 0.1 degrees by direct heating. Obviously some of that will be radiated into space but still, it is some indication of just how much impact we could potentially have on the world.

This was calculated from annual world energy production, the volume of the Earth's atmosphere and the specific heat capacity of air.

If there is any validity to my reasoning here, even Nuclear Fusion isn't going to save us.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:02, closed)

Oh I think that it's well established that CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas
but it is the bogeyman the climate change activists have chosen to be the poster-child of their campaign. Despite both methane and water being far larger contributors to the greenhouse effect. However, nobody is entirely sure of the mechanisms behind methane and water (as I mentioned with the 10 degree change that happened in 50 years, probably involving the water cycle but they don't know what) so they tend to leave those to one side and go "oh look CO2, we understand that, let's focus on this" despite, as I've mentioned, even a tiny amount of change in the natural water cycle rendering moot one entire century's output of industrial CO2.

Now I'm not saying we can't have an impact on the world, clearly we can. But I myself wouldn't like to say just how much of the warming we're seeing is down to industrial CO2 and how much is a by product of deforestation of the planet or increasing the earth's natural albedo by paving it in concrete but climate change proponents ARE sure, they're evangelically sure and I'm afraid I don't yet share their confidence. I would like that level of certainty, to be sure, but by the shrillness of their arguments thus far and the actions of even those you would think we could trust to be fair and unbiased I can't shake off the suspicion that somewhere corners are being cut.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:15, closed)

I was just wondering what you thought of the idea
that we might cause global warming just by using a lot of energy, even without emissions, if our usage habits continue to grow exponentially at the current rate.

As someone who tinkers with PC cooling solutions, I know from first-hand experience that the more power you put through any given system, the hotter it gets. But I never heard anyone mention this as a particular cause for concern.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:21, closed)

Well, you're in good company
Because Steven Hawking himself calculated the amount of warming caused by consumption of energy by electrical gizmos and concluded that there will (or should) be detectable warming just from that alone. Though I'm not sure he's willing to part with his wheelchair and computer just yet....

But I don't know if it was to civilisation-destroying levels as you're suggesting. I suppose the thing to do would be to look at other energy-generating phenomena for comparison, such as not necessarily eruption laval spills and the like. If anything such as that has contributed more energy to the atmosphere without a massively deleterious effect on life on earth then it's probably not going to be a cause for concern.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:30, closed)

Interesting...
I'm willing to donate all of my carbon credits to Hawking anyway.

The obvious difference between human energy consumption and a volcanic eruption is that an eruption is a calamitous event whereas human consumption is continuous. Another difference is that humans are actually generating power, whereas lava was already hot from the creation of the Earth. But it's worth looking at.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:35, closed)

I mentioned not eruption level spills
I'm thinking of more miniature flood basalt type affairs where there's been continuous outpouring of lava, and therefore heat, over a long period of time.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:42, closed)

If it's been continuous for millions of years it won't be a worry,
it might make the Earth warmer than it would otherwise have been but it would be in thermal equilibrium by now.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:47, closed)

The trick would be to find a geological event like that
that wasn't a full-on flood basalt, because they tend to induce mass extinctions due to pollution and blocking out the sun, that sort of thing.

We'd need to look at the geological record for such an event that had life existing throughout it to measure it's effect on climate and possible extinction rates.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to break off from this discussion now as it's nearly ten and I still haven't had dinner this evening. But feel free to reply and I'll get back to it when I can.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:54, closed)

Okay where'd he go?
The guy I was just composing a reply to, to the effect that methane is 20 times more effective a greenhouse gas than CO2 and has more than doubled in concentration in the atmosphere over the last 200 or so years?
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:38, closed)

back button, back button, copy paste!
it's worth sharing anyway... NOx is also pretty nasty, too.

I've got the figures now for volcanoes. Human annual world energy production is about 5 x 10^11 gigajoules (at 15.8 Terawatts x 24 hours x 365.25 days = 138502.8 TWh).

A volcano is about 24 megatons which is 10^8 gigajoules

So human energy use is about 5000 volcanoes a year...

HOLY SHIT.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:45, closed)

Yes but a lot of that energy that we're generating
we're using. It is dissippated mechanically in a multitude of ways. Unless the figure you have there is specifically for energy we are pumping into the atmosphere after we've used the bulk of it for something else.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:49, closed)

First Law of Thermodynamics, mate,
heat is work and work is heat. It doesn't get "used up".
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 21:51, closed)

As I understand it when, say, the internal combustion engine
burns fuel for energy and uses this to produce motion, there's energy that's converted to work and energy that just is wasted for want of a better word. Of the energy that produces work, this is dissipated in other ways. Again, as I understand it, not all of that energy will make it into the atmosphere. If it did, would this not mean that we had stumbled upon "free" energy?

I'm not entirely sure what point you were trying to make or whether this is the appropriate rebuttal.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 22:00, closed)

all mechanical energy will eventually be converted to heat by friction.
energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can change form. Eventually all power used is dissipated into the surroundings in the form of heat, unless it drives an endothermic chemical reaction and gets turned back into chemical energy again.

If your PC draws 200W of power from the mains, for instance, it will be putting out 200W of heat as well.

But if that surprises you, this will surprise you even more.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 22:06, closed)

you're right and wrong...
All energy dies eventually go to heat (vibration of molecules), but your assumption that the temperature of the earth will increase has a key flaw, that the earth is a closed system. In reality, most of the extra energy that we produce will also be lost to space as radiation. There will be a change in the equilibrium point, but it will be small.
Think of it like a fridge, our energy use is like putting a bulb in the fridge, greenhouse gas build up would be like opening the door (not a great analogy, but hopefully the intent is clear?
apologies for erroneous worda, this is done on my phone
(Hill Dog loves planes, Tue 6 Dec 2011, 18:34, closed)

You can't ask a climate change evangelist "are you sure?"
Because they are sure, they're convinced, they've seen the light and they want to convert you, poor damned sceptic that you are. So you can't really ask the lay people who are proponents of it, you have to go the experts.

And there, well, they don't really help themselves either. An oversight committee recently criticised the experts for exaggerating the likely effects of climate change, using only the worst-case scenarios and scaremongering.

There was a debate between two scientists I saw on YouTube last year, where the pro-guy had his laptop and was clicking through graph after graph and making his claims and he leaned back satisfied with himself only to be stumped when the other guy said "I see a lot of very nice graphs about greenhouse gases, I see none there about water vapour, which is by far the largest contributor to the overall greenhouse effect by volume such that a 0.001% change in water vapour concentration would utterly swamp all the contributions to climate by all the other gases".

To which the reply came

"We haven't looked at water in this analysis".

And it's that kind of thing that makes me hold back full commital to the apparent consensus.
(Dildo Bugger destroyed a ring on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:37, closed)

Generally I try not to be overskeptical,
if I don't understand the science involved in a particular issue then I've got no good grounds to refute it. At risk of "appeal to authority" I'll defer to those who do understand it. It's the lay people who don't understand it but nevertheless try to pick holes in the evidence that wind me up the most, especially when it's quite obvious what their motives are. My dad is one of these people, he'll parrot the criticisms he's read online somewhere, but it's obvious generally that his main concern is his "way of life" which he perceives to be under threat. Which of course it is!
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 20:51, closed)