It Continues

[poliphilo]

The pundits are scurrying around the TV studios to assure us that present conditions in no way challenge their theories of global warming. I don't believe them.
 
Yesterday temperatures in parts of Britain dropped to within a degree or two of the temperature in Antarctica.

We had to go shopping yesterday or we and the in-laws would have run out of essential supplies- which In my father-in-law's case means Muller fruit corners. The car was nestled into a sort of a bunker outside the house- and I had to dig it out. Then, when we came home at the end of the afternoon, I had to dig it back in again. The roads round town are dodgy and they haven't gritted the sidestreets since the last fall of snow. They haven't collected the rubbish either. We didn't risk driving down Dot and Eric's street. Ailz parked at the top of it and I carried their groceries the final quarter mile on foot.

I'd been warned we might find the supermarket shelves stripped back to the bare metal. This wasn't the case. Sainsbury's Oldham  had all the essentials. A cheery,  "look at us surviving the blitz" spirit was in evidence. A sales assistant we know by sight proudly told us about her walk to work. Christmas puddings were on sale at 75% off- and I treated us to what would have otherwise been a very expensive one. It gave me vivid dreams. 

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

My husband (who recently completed a PhD on flooding) is convinced by global warming and he has his own evidence that he has collected himself.

The thing about our recent cold snap is that it's due to the warm current being diverted to Greenland, where they're currently experiencing a much warmer than normal winter. This has happened before in mini warm periods (when the Vikings colonised Greenland, for example). I'm hoping that it flips back before next winter though.

On the other hand, if this climate pattern keeps up, it will be worth investing in cold weather equipment, so next time we'll be better prepared. We've got soft after a long series of warm wet winters. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Of course I know nothing about the science. I am probably incapable of understanding it. I notice, though, that belief in the theory is by no means universal- and there are suggestions the evidence is being cooked.

I believe I'd rather have snow that the warm, wet winter weather of recent years.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

The belief in the theory isn't universal, but it is overwhelming among scientists.

Have a look at this:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/climate-change-a-consensus-among-scientists/

Information Is Beautiful is one of my favourite websites because the chap who runs it is fantastic at presenting complex data visually.

As for the suggestion that the information is being cooked. There's evidence that some of the pro-climate-change scientists at the Essex Uni data repository deliberately withheld data which weakened the case for climate change. This was, without a doubt, stupid and irresponsible of them, and I wouldn't be unhappy if people were sacked over it.

But there's more than one repository of such data - there's at least 2 in the US, one run by NASA - and there's consensus among all of them that the data shows that humans are affecting the climate catastrophically. And, after the Essex debacle, you can be certain that the other repositories went over things with a fine tooth comb to make sure there was no such skeleton in their closet.

It's also the case that the data that Essex withheld was to do with one particular measure of climate change - not all of them.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

First of all it is East Anglia not Essex. Secondly they refuse to hand over the data that goes into the model, under the freedom of information act. There are in total four sets of temperature measurements: the UEA / Had CRUt3 set, University of Alabama Huntsville, Goddard Institute of Space Science, and NASA/NOAA. These dont always agree. The UAH guys in particular don't always agree with the others. Thirdly two of the datasets consist of satellite data which is calibrated against the land surface data so is not independent. Fourthly the weather stations used are not consistent; see Watts Up With That for specific critiques. Lastly there is evidence (see Climategate) that some of the data was adjusted, fudged, cherry-picked, blocked, suppressed and otherwise manipulated to fit with the IPCC position and the career-long beliefs of the protagonists.

There may well be global warming going on, the question is, is that man-made, and is cutting carbon emissions the best way to deal with it rather than tackling poverty, water supply, flood defences, directly.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Apologies for mixing up my data-centres. And the refusal to release the data comes under my heading of 'stupid and irresponsible'.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think anyone can deny that the climate has changed and is changing. You only have to look at the fossils in the coal measures and the remains of mammoths etc and to read about ice fairs on the Thames to realise that Britain has had vastly different climates over the ages.

What people are arguing about is whether humans are having an effect, and if so, exactly how much. That's where it all gets problematical.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

If the Gulf stream is changing its course and feeding warmer waters into the Arctic, then would that no account for the melting that is going on up there, along with the freezing that is happening here, and especially in the UK?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's it exactly. The warm current has done a bit of a wobble and got sucked up into another current that has taken it further north than normal. I think this is what happened during the winter of 1963 when we had a big freeze. As far as I know, it should wobble back again during the summer. It's done it before because there was a mini-warm period in Greenland some hundreds of years ago when the Vikings managed to settle there for a while. I don't know whether anyone's looked to see if Britain had particularly cold winters at that time.

Global warming is actually a deceptive name. Climate turbulence is probably a better description of what's going on. As the planet warms, there is more change and more extremes. My husband has local date going back decades that clearly shows that the wet period has definitely moved by a few months.