In message . com,
writes
But the thing is, if the atmosphere gets warmer, liberates CO2 from
the oceans, isn't this warmness going to cause a rise in atmospheric
water vapour? If so, surely the process of the water vapour trapping
the carbon (i.e. a homeostatic response and part of the carbon cycle)
is going to take care of a lot of the 'problem'?
Watching Snowball Earth on TV last night, the same connection was made.
It was asserted that volcano's throw out 10 billion tonnes of CO2 a
year, and during the time of total glaciation the atmospheric CO2 rose
to 10%. Which caused surface temperatures to rise to 50 degrees and melt
the ice, which in tern caused clouds and rain, and washed the CO2 into
the sea. If It worked then I can't see why it wouldn't now.
--
Clive.

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, JNugent wrote:

wrote:
On 16 Mar, 08:52, Mike Hughes wrote:

...I believe that there is currently too much emphasis on this and not
enough on other aspects of pollution, which may cause us more damage
than any (natural) warming may do.

(I'm a cause-of-climate change sceptic, BTW. Clearly it's happening

How does anyone know?

Er, measurements of temperature?

For how long, at which locations, at which frequency and at what accuracy
have measurements been taken?

There are detailed and reliable direct temperature measurements going back
to the late 19th century. There are also indirect measurements, such as
trree ring widths, isotope ratios in ice cores, and coral growth patterns,
going back further than that - the latest ice cores go back 800 000 years.

This is all in the IPCC reports, and is covered rather well on wikipedia.

Unless there is an explanation for the increases in the last 400 years -
or 4000 years - and unless it can be distinguished from the reasons for
the alleged increases in recent times, the whole business (a good word
to use) is so much hot air.

There is. Go and read about it.

tom

--
WHO REPLACED THE CLIENT FILES WITH TEQUILA.. ALFONZ??

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 wrote:

Homoeostasis is a very powerful system,

And not one the earth's climate has. Despite what Dr Lovelock's charming
stories may say.

Word of the day - Lynn Margulis, the saner face of the Gaia hypothesis,
says that Gaia isn't homeostatic, it's homeorhetic.

We have effectly nil control over anything.

No. That's the whole point. It really seems that in this case, we do.

(E&OE, I was at a rather good gig at a Levenshulme pub last night and my
head is still a bit skew-whiff).

Excuse accepted!

tom

--
WHO REPLACED THE CLIENT FILES WITH TEQUILA.. ALFONZ??

On 17 Mar, 19:03, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 wrote:

Homoeostasis is a very powerful system,

And not one the earth's climate has.

Are you absolutely sure of that?

Despite what Dr Lovelock's charming
stories may say.

Nowt to do with him.

Word of the day - Lynn Margulis, the saner face of the Gaia hypothesis,
says that Gaia isn't homeostatic, it's homeorhetic.

I'm not talking of the Gaia hypothesis.

We have effectly nil control over anything.

No. That's the whole point. It really seems that in this case, we do.

Seems? Correllation does not imply causation.

(E&OE, I was at a rather good gig at a Levenshulme pub last night and my
head is still a bit skew-whiff).

Excuse accepted!

:-)

Clive. wrote:
If It worked then I can't see why it wouldn't now.

A simple, single point: Climate scientists are perfectly capable of
hypothesising such things, and indeed might on an average day, if
so inclined, any one such scientist could come up with several such
ideas. They then test them. They are undoubtedly far better at this
than you.

#Paul

On 17 Mar, 18:59, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, JNugent wrote:
wrote:
On 16 Mar, 08:52, Mike Hughes wrote:

...I believe that there is currently too much emphasis on this and not
enough on other aspects of pollution, which may cause us more damage
than any (natural) warming may do.

(I'm a cause-of-climate change sceptic, BTW. Clearly it's happening

How does anyone know?

Er, measurements of temperature?

For how long, at which locations, at which frequency and at what accuracy
have measurements been taken?

There are detailed and reliable direct temperature measurements going back
to the late 19th century.

as to how reliable is subjec to debate...


There are also indirect measurements, such as
trree ring widths
which tell you if it was a good year or a bad year; not terribly
accurate is it?

This is all in the IPCC reports, and is covered rather well on wikipedia.
that font of all accurate knowledge...

Unless there is an explanation for the increases in the last 400 years -
or 4000 years - and unless it can be distinguished from the reasons for
the alleged increases in recent times, the whole business (a good word
to use) is so much hot air.

There is. Go and read about it.

people have been; but anyone skeptical of even any part of the GW
argument seems to get abused hurled at them...

Fod

On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 07:05:05AM -0700, Boltar wrote:
On Mar 16, 1:18 pm, "Fod" wrote:
given the range of projections that might not happen; you might see
the warmer weather of 1-2 degrees increasing food yields.
If that were the case then shouldn't the med and northern africa be
the bread basket of europe?

Before it got all buggered up by over-grazing etc, southern Europe and
northern Africa was indeed the breadbasket of Europe. To control the
Egyptian grain supply was to control Rome - which is how Vespasian
became emperor.

--
David Cantrell | Cake Smuggler Extraordinaire

In this episode, R2 and Luke weld the doors shut on their X-Wing,
and Chewbacca discovers that his Ewok girlfriend is really just a
Womble with its nose chopped off.

On Sun, 18 Mar 2007, Fod wrote:

On 17 Mar, 18:59, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, JNugent wrote:
wrote:
On 16 Mar, 08:52, Mike Hughes wrote:

...I believe that there is currently too much emphasis on this and not
enough on other aspects of pollution, which may cause us more damage
than any (natural) warming may do.

(I'm a cause-of-climate change sceptic, BTW. Clearly it's happening

How does anyone know?

Er, measurements of temperature?

For how long, at which locations, at which frequency and at what accuracy
have measurements been taken?

There are detailed and reliable direct temperature measurements going back
to the late 19th century.

as to how reliable is subjec to debate...

But not informed debate.

There are also indirect measurements, such as trree ring widths

which tell you if it was a good year or a bad year; not terribly
accurate is it?

One alone isn't. Large numbers, not so bad. Large numbers taken together
with other sources, pretty decent. Still nowhere near as good as
instrumental measurements, but better than nothing - and with calculable
confidence limits, so the uncertainty that remains is at least a known
quantity of uncertainty.

This is all in the IPCC reports, and is covered rather well on wikipedia.

that font of all accurate knowledge...

If you don't like Wikipedia, you're free to read the original sources.

Unless there is an explanation for the increases in the last 400 years -
or 4000 years - and unless it can be distinguished from the reasons for
the alleged increases in recent times, the whole business (a good word
to use) is so much hot air.

There is. Go and read about it.

people have been; but anyone skeptical of even any part of the GW
argument seems to get abused hurled at them...

Funny, i had exactly this discussion with an HIV/AIDS denier a few days
ago. You'll have to excuse me if i find it more plausible that a small
number of enthusiastic amateurs are wrong than that there's a massive
international conspiracy which has gagged thousands of scientists across
the globe.

tom

--
Destroy - kill all hippies.

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 wrote:

On 17 Mar, 19:03, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 wrote:

Homoeostasis is a very powerful system,

And not one the earth's climate has.

Are you absolutely sure of that?

No, of course not, i'm a scientist.

But, AIUI, there's neither evidence nor argument of any quality for it.

We have effectly nil control over anything.

No. That's the whole point. It really seems that in this case, we do.

Seems? Correllation does not imply causation.

Wow. That's my position destroyed then. Well done.

tom

--
Destroy - kill all hippies.

In article ,
Clive. wrote:
is going to take care of a lot of the 'problem'?
Watching Snowball Earth on TV last night, the same connection was made.
It was asserted that volcano's throw out 10 billion tonnes of CO2 a
year, and during the time of total glaciation the atmospheric CO2 rose
to 10%. Which caused surface temperatures to rise to 50 degrees and melt
the ice, which in tern caused clouds and rain, and washed the CO2 into
the sea. If It worked then I can't see why it wouldn't now.

Remember Snowball Earth was made in 2001, six years ago. Heck Clive,
I don't know how old you are but you might remember the 1970s, when we
really thought we were heading for another Ice Age, based purely on how
long it had been since the last one. But we've discovered a vast amount
about historical climate since the 1970s, we've even discovered a lot
since 2001.

We know that there are long interglacials, we know the cycles, we have a
pretty good idea about the things that produces the cycles. Not all, of
course - no scientist would ever claim that - but nobody has yet come up
with an idea that explains the facts which doesn't involve human activity.

We've drilled kilometers deep into Arctic and Antarctic ice, and we know
exactly how CO2 has changed over the last million years - and neither
temperature nor CO2 has ever risen so quickly over such a short period
in all that time. Not even at the end of previous glacial periods when
we know the world was warming and methane was being released from swamps
and sea beds. We know how much and how fast sea levels have changed over
the same time because it's shown by cave formations - and we know that sea
levels lag behind warming because the seas take a long time to warm up.
But they will catch up, without doubt.

We know in great detail on a scale of decades how the Sun varies, and
we have some good theories about how it changes over the millennia.
When I say "theories" these aren't just airy fairy ideas, they have to
fit in both with the hard historical evidence here on Earth and with
the millions of other stars we can observe. And when it comes down to
facts, there are dozens of telescopes pointed at the Sun all the time,
and it just isn't varying in a way that would cause the temperature rise
we are seeing.

It's not as if news is getting better either. Every fact we find points
to accelerated warming. The "no warming" camp said it would be impossible
for all the Greenland glaciers to melt - but since 2001 we've discovered
they are not only melting, but accelerating. They said the Antarctic
ice sheleves wouldn't melt - but every few years we lose another major
ice shelf. Sea levels have already risen by several inches.

And thanks to Russian drilling we now know what we didn't know in 2001 -
that the main Antarctic ice cap is lubricated by water just the same
as the Greenland glaciers. If the Antarctic continental ice sheet
starts moving, and there's no reason to think it won't, then sea levels
will rise by hundreds of feet, not the tens of feet you might read of,
and the fresh water released will completely change ocean currents -
directly causing still more extreme weather.

I'm not worried about what we've seen so far. This is nothing.
I'm worried because it's 100% certain this is only the beginning.
If we ceased CO2 production now, totally, then on the basis of past Ice
Ages it would take between 200 and 1000 years for the warming to stop
and the climate to stabilise. But are we stopping, are we even cutting
down ? No, both the USA and China are actually moving to pump out still
more greenhouse gases. Burn less oil - burn coal instead says Dubya.
Yeah right.

Of course all this will take a few centuries, so nobody reading this
newsgroup needs to actually think seriously about it, you can all keep
your doubts cos it won't make any difference to you. It'll be your
kids' kids' kids' kids who have a much smaller Island Nation to live on,
and one impossible to grow crops on because of the extremes of weather.

The US and other governments insisted the IPCC report had to be watered
down to the point of vagueness, but that doesn't mean the facts behind it
are vague. Dubya even cancelled the satellite which would have studied
your (Clive's) sun=warm, clouds=cool argument and settled it once and
for all. I gather that years later it's still sitting in a hanger
waiting for launch funding - whilst Dubya floods NASA with loadsamoney
to send men back to the Moon.

If you have doubts, don't be like him and blame it on not knowing the
answers to your quite valid questions. I write forcefully cos I am
convinced it's a very serious threat, far more serious than short term
risks like global terrorism or running out of oil. But I would never
want to override someone's genuine doubts.

But please don't rely on six year old documentaries, or on programs
made by companies who have already been sued for twisting words to mean
their opposite (there was one of each last week). Please go and read
the original research.

Nick
--
http://www.leverton.org/blosxom ... So express yourself