Thread: Any doubts about Climate Change?

Human greenhouse gas emissions 'have cancelled the next ice age'
Scientists say human intervention has 'postponed' what might otherwise be another ice age 'by at least 100,000 years'
15 hours ago

At a time of intense planetary warming, it’s odd to even contemplate a counterfactual world in which we might instead be in or heading into a glacial period, sometimes more popularly called an “ice age.”

But new research published Wednesday in the influential journal Nature suggests that we may have had a close scrape with such a period earlier in the current geological epoch known as the Holocene — and that pre-industrial human modifications of the climate through agriculture, fires and deforestation might have just barely staved it off.

“Humanity narrowly escaped a glacial inception in the middle of the Holocene, which was almost suppressing the formation of civilization,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, one of the paper’s three authors and founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (the other authors are also affiliated with the institute).

Moreover, the study says, massive human greenhouse gas emissions since that time have likely “postponed” what might otherwise be another ice age “by at least 100,000 years.”

The new research is based on the idea that there are two key factors that shape whether the Earth goes into an ice age (or glacial period) or not. There’s one that humans can influence, as well as one they really can’t.

The factor out of our control is the Earth’s Milankovitch cycles, which describe the erratic way in which the planet orbits the sun and spins on its axis over vast time periods. The Earth’s orbit grows slowly more and less elliptical, even as the angle of the planet’s axial tilt, and the wobble of the poles as the planet spins (much like what you see with a spinning top), also change slightly over thousands of years.

All of this can affect the delivery of sunlight over different parts of the Earth and the nature of the seasons — for instance, causing summers to be colder — and thus, whether it’s possible to build up huge ice masses on land. Critically, how much sun the Earth’s northern hemisphere high latitudes receive in summer shapes whether ice can build up there over long periods, the new study says.

But there’s also a second factor that’s in our control — how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. We are able to turn this knob by how many forests we cut down and how many fossil fuels we burn, both processes that transfer carbon from the land (or beneath it) into the atmosphere.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide traps heat and so causes an overall warming effect, and this will happen no matter where the planet is in its various orbital cycles. And if there’s enough of it, it can counteract the tendency of these cycles to make and then unmake ice ages.

“We wanted to understand what is really triggering glacial inception, and what we found is an amazingly simple function, which is the ratio between insolation around 65 north latitude and the CO2 content of the atmosphere,” Schellnhuber said. “And this is more or less summarizing the two key factors in the development of glacial cycles over the last at least 800,000 years.”

Specifically, using analysis of past planetary glaciations and a computer model of the Earth that is able to predict their occurrence, the researchers found that carbon dioxide concentrations were only slightly too high to push us into glaciation a few thousand years ago. Instead, we enjoyed the relatively friendly (for humans) interglacial climate of the Holocene.

“The Earth system would already be well on the way towards a new glacial state if the pre-industrial CO2 level had been merely 40 [parts per million] lower than it was during the late Holocene,” the authors write. Indeed, they note that about 800,000 years ago, orbital alignments were similar but carbon dioxide concentrations were around 240 parts per million, and glaciation did indeed occur.

It’s important to note that at present, the Earth is not fully deglaciated — we still have major ice sheets atop Greenland and especially Antarctica. However, in a period of glacial maximum, ice sheets would also cover northern Europe and much of North America, placing vastly more total ice atop land and thus leading to sea levels radically lower than they are at present.

A key question raised by the research then becomes why carbon dioxide concentrations were higher during the Holocene — the current geological epoch that began 11,700 years ago, unless you agree with some scientists that we’ve now entered the “Anthropocene” — and whether this is natural. Here, the authors walk up to, but do not fully embrace, the idea that humans substantially altered the climate long before the industrial revolution, and specifically, that they upped atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from around 240 parts per million to 280 parts per million through deforestation, agriculture and other means.

This idea is credited to University of Virginia climate scientist William Ruddiman, who was not involved with the current paper. Asked to comment on it, Ruddiman agreed with the work overall but questioned why the authors didn’t more fully embrace his thesis (which they call “debatable”), and the idea that pre-industrial humans headed off a coming ice age through their alterations of the planet’s land surface, even without mass burning of fossil fuels (yet).

“While there is little doubt that industrial-era anthropogenic emissions are now forestalling any possibility of a new ice age, the evidence shown here suggests that this major human intervention started millennia ago,” Ruddiman said in a statement to The Post.

If Ruddiman’s hypothesis is right, then combined with the new research, it would suggest that burgeoning human civilization basically headed off an ice age before that ice age could complicate matters for human civilization, making its establishment and growth considerably more difficult, especially in some key northern hemisphere regions.

And just as the current study’s analysis allows for an explanation of why we did not recently begin an ice age, so it also allows for an assessment of when another is likely to occur. After all, we’ve since gone far beyond any pre-industrial alterations of Earth’s climate and driven atmospheric carbon dioxide levels up to 400 parts per million, with peak concentrations still not yet achieved.

If we had maintained planetary carbon dioxide levels at about 280 parts per million — the pre-industrial level that apparently averted ice age onset — then the research suggests that we may then have enjoyed a relatively stable climatic optimum, conditions that were friendly for civilization for about 50,000 years, without tipping into glaciation or experiencing extreme warming.

Instead, and depending on how much more carbon dioxide we emit, the research says, the planet may not see large ice sheets build for 100,000 years. (It takes a very long time for atmospheric carbon dioxide to be naturally removed again from the atmosphere.)

Indeed, with all the atmospheric CO2, we’re currently headed in the opposite direction: We’re now seeing major changes in Greenland and Antarctica, though it’s not clear yet just how much of these remaining ice sheets we could lose.

“The next two glacial inceptions will be suppressed by the current cumulative emissions, plus the emissions we will unavoidably have over the next 40 to 50 years, even if we keep global warming below 1.5 to 2 degrees,” Schellnhuber said.

“The ice ages are called off, if you like, by human interference,” he said.

Human greenhouse gas emissions 'have cancelled the next ice age' | Science | News | The Independent

Is it time to declare a global emergency yet?

If not why not?

Shouldn't the leaders be leading and not playing carbon credit game with humanity!

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Is it time to declare a global emergency yet?

If not why not?

Shouldn't the leaders be leading and not playing carbon credit game with humanity!

All about profit from all sides of the issue...

Originally Posted by thaimeme

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Is it time to declare a global emergency yet?

If not why not?

Shouldn't the leaders be leading and not playing carbon credit game with humanity!

All about profit from all sides of the issue...

Yep and meanwhile all life on the planet suffers, and virtually no one seems to care.

Educators are not educating and leaders are not leading.

The point we are at now with permafrost thawing is pretty much irreversible for us.
The consequences are yet to be fully appreciated.

That the effect of global warming on permafrost has been understood for 30 years or more is criminally reckless.

Stupid man

The winter is ending, the ice is thawing,
the Earth is moving to a new 'Spring '


embrace change don't be afraid of it

There isn't anywhere to run to, that's the point.

2015 was hottest year in recorded history, scientists say

7:58 AM Thursday Jan 21, 2016



This illustration obtained from NASA on January 20, 2016 shows that 2015 was the warmest year since modern record-keeping began in 1880. Photo / AFP

Last year wasn't just the Earth's hottest year on record - it left a century of high temperature marks in the dust.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA announced that 2015 was by far the hottest year in 136 years of record keeping. For the most part, scientists at the agencies and elsewhere blamed man-made global warming, with a boost from El Nino.

NOAA said 2015's temperature was 58.62 degrees Fahrenheit (14.79 degrees Celsius), passing 2014 by a record margin of 0.29 degrees. That's 1.62 degrees above the 20th-century average. NASA, which measures differently, said 2015 was 0.23 degrees warmer than the record set in 2014 and 1.6 degrees above 20th century average.

Because of the wide margin over 2014, NASA calculated that 2015 was a record with 94 percent certainty, more than double the certainty it had last year when announcing 2014 as a record. NOAA put the number at above 99 percent - or "virtually certain," said Tom Karl, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

For the first time Earth is 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was in pre-industrial times, NOAA and NASA said. That's a key milestone because world leaders have set a threshold of trying to avoid warming of 1.5 or degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

Because of the pace of rising temperatures, "we don't have very far to go to reach 1.5," Karl said.



But 1.5 or 2 degrees are not "magic numbers" and "we're already seeing the impacts of global warming," said NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies director Gavin Schmidt.

"This trend will continue; it will continue because we understand why it's happening," Schmidt said. "It's happening because the dominant force is carbon dioxide" from burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Although 2015 is now the hottest on record, it was the fourth time in 11 years that Earth broke annual marks for high temperature.

"It's getting to the point where breaking record is the norm," Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said. "It's almost unusual when we're not breaking a record."

December 2015 was the 10th month last year that set a monthly warmth record, with only January and April not hitting high marks.

"That's the first time we've seen that," said NOAA's Karl.

In December, the globe was 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, beating the old record set in 2014 by more than a half a degree, NOAA calculated.

Earth has broken monthly heat records 34 times since 2000. The last time a global cold month record was set was December 1916 and the coldest year on record was 1911, according to NOAA.

An added factor this year is the strong El Nino, a warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide and adds to the globe's heat. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University said a strong El Nino can add about a third of a degree of warming to Earth's temperature but that "sits upon the ramp of global warming."

Karl and Schmidt both said 2015 would have been a record without El Nino. "But El Nino pushed it way over the top," Karl said.

And it's likely to happen this year, too. Schmidt, Karl and others said there's a better than even chance that this year will pass 2015 as the hottest year on record, thanks to El Nino.

"2015 will be difficult to beat, but you say that almost every year and you get surprised," said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at the College of DuPage outside of Chicago.

Measurements from Japan, the United Kingdom and the University of California at Berkeley also show 2015 is the warmest on record. Satellite measurements, which scientists say don't measure where we live and have a larger margin of error, calculate that last year was only the third hottest since 1979.

Non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science often criticize NOAA for adjustments to past temperature records to reconcile the measurement devices with modern techniques, but even without any adjustments NOAA data shows 2015 as the hottest year on record, Karl said.

- AP

2015 was hottest year in recorded history, scientists say - World - NZ Herald News

Originally Posted by blue

embrace change don't be afraid of it

...

Originally Posted by Neo

There isn't anywhere to run to, that's the point.

Perhaps he's building the Scabrous, sorry Scarborough, Ark!

Originally Posted by blue

The winter is ending, the ice is thawing,
the Earth is moving to a new 'Spring '


embrace change don't be afraid of it

Exactly what would we running from?

Originally Posted by RPETER65

Exactly what would we running from?

The Devil, Repeater.

Quick he's right behind you!!

How geological forces are behind the 'Warmest Year Ever'

Written by James Edward Kamis, guest post on 21 January 2016.
Recent media reports by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are claiming 2015 as the "Warmest Year Ever" based on land-based temperature readings.

Figure 1.) Ocean temperature maps of the 1998 and 2015 El Nino’s. Anomalously warm areas of the Pacific Ocean are highlighted in red.

Yet the most important aspect of these stories has been drowned out / lost in the giant media climate change Tsunami wave of propaganda and misinformation. No one has answered one extremely important question:What was the cause of this increase in atmospheric temperatures after an 18-plus-year lull?
Based on large amounts of reliable data, observations, and very telling shallow sea surface temperature (SST) maps, the answer to the above question is geological forces (as a geologist, I am acutely aware of the Earth's physical structure and substance, its history, and the processes that act on it). In other words, like all scientists in their respective fields, I have prejudices too, but I try to keep them grounded and based on sound scientific principals, not pie-in-the-sky computer models.
Proof supporting my predisposed statement is based on: Utilizing the most reliable atmospheric temperature data, low-level satellite measurements, and that Earth’s atmospheric temperature has not risen in nearly 19 years. Even using NOAA’s 'cooked' temperature data, there has only been moderate and, more importantly, constant temperature rate increases for 18.9 years. None of the data sets supports / predicts a dramatic and sudden increase in global atmospheric temperatures as per the 2015 record-breaking year.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) during the last 18.9 years has risen at a constant, moderate rate of roughly 2 parts per million/year. This trend agrees with / confirms that the constant rate and very low-level temperature trends of the last 19 years, especially the original “unadjusted” data, is correct. So here again no hint that the trace gas CO2 is the cause of the 2015 atmospheric temperature change.
Having eliminated the top two 2015 temperature anomaly cause contenders, at least as per those favoring the theory of man-made global warming, it becomes necessary to consider other alternative reasons. Let's begin:
The 1998 El Niño warmed Earth’s atmosphere by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.34 degrees Fahrenheit) and not surprisingly the 2015 El Niño has warmed the Earth by a nearly identical amount…1.57 degrees Celsius (2.86 degrees Fahrenheit). The main takeaway from this observation is that the 2015 'warmest year ever' record is not that unique. An equally anomalous increase in atmospheric temperatures occurred in 1998. Both of these anomalous atmospheric temperature events occurred in El Niño years. This strongly implies that there is a relationship between so-called 'warmest year ever' records and El Niños.
For more detailed discussions concerning the geological nature of all El Niños, the reader is directed to these previous CCD posts here and here. There you will find very compelling and scientific information / discussions that document how El Niños are generated by super-heated and chemically charged fluid flow from an area east of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon islands. This is one of the most active geological areas on earth (Figure 2.).

Figure 2. These two maps illustrate the 1998 and 2015 El Nino’s as represented by hot ocean temperature maps. Hot El Nino areas are shaded reddish- brown. Both El Nino’s were heat sourced at the same exact / non-moving limited area location (“Point Source”). This and significant amounts of other information strongly indicate that these, and in fact all El Nino’s, were generated from geological heat flow from a fixed non-moving geological feature.

If you dig deep enough into many of the 2015 'warmest year ever' media reports you will find statements that can be paraphrased as follows: ”El Niños may be the root cause of the current temperature anomaly”, and “El Niños are caused by unknown natural forces.” These are very telling statements that are missed by most reporters in the mainstream media, and by extension the public, and are essentially a confirmation that man-made global warming is notthe root cause of this 2015 warming anomaly.
Some things in life are counter-intuitive, but when you stop and think about these things they make perfect sense. These are “aha moments”, defined in Webster’s as a moment of sudden realization, insight, recognition, or comprehension. So let’s take a moment and think about the 2015 increase in atmospheric temperatures. It just doesn’t fit any of the normal trends. It is in fact so bizarre that it has to be caused be some seemingly unknown force—a force that is outside the normal CO2, atmospheric temperature, or oceanic temperature trends.
It's time to give proper consideration that both the 2015 El Niño and 2015 'warmest year ever' might be caused by geological forces. Such as a sudden expulsion of chemically charged and super-heated seawater from a deep ocean fault zone in the western Pacific Ocean that is the proven source area for all E Niños (and happen on a regular basis). This notion certainly fits all the known data and observations. Additionally, its fits very well into the Plate Climatology Theory, which proposes that geological forces are the root cause of many “natural” variations in the Earth’s climate patterns, including El Niños.
Hopefully after reading this, you too will have your own "aha moment."
James Edward Kamis is a working professional Geologist, AAPG member of 41 years who has a BS and MS in Geology. He has always been fascinated by the connection between Geology and Climate. Years of research / observation have convinced him that the Earth’s Heat Flow Engine, which drives the outer crustal plates, is also an important driver of the Earth’s climate.
REFERENCES
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/t...802/tr9802.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997%E...i%C3%B1o_event
2015 was the hottest year on record, according to new data - LA Times

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Human greenhouse gas emissions 'have cancelled the next ice age'

You post that like it's a bad thing.


Nice work mankind. Keep it up. Bloody hippies should be happy. Can't have a summer of love when its -40 degrees C in San Fran.

has January been selected to be the warmest ever yet ?

I guess the fixers are waiting for this this inconvenient truth to blow over first

US snowstorm: Massive US blizzard paralyses East Coast

A massive blizzard bringing more than 2ft (60cm) of snow and punishing winds is advancing up the US East Coast.
More than 50 million people across more than a dozen states have been warned to stay at home as it moves north.
The nation's capital, Washington, could lie under a record 30in (76cm) of snow by the time the storm passes on Sunday.
At least nine people have been killed and a state of emergency declared in 10 states. Transport services have been cancelled, and homes are without power.
The weather system affects a huge swathe of the country, from Arkansas in the south to Massachusetts in the north-east.
Supermarkets ran out of food amid a rush for supplies before the first snowflakes fell on Friday.

looks like they are building snowmen to scare away the global warming monster

Top MIT Scientist Mocks Claim That 2015 Was The Hottest Year On Record
Photo of Michael Bastasch
MICHAEL BASTASCH
12:28 PM 01/21/2016
40002 40002 TOP
Former Vice President Al Gore speaks during the Center for American Progress 10th Anniversary Conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2013. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) Former Vice President Al Gore speaks during the Center for American Progress 10th Anniversary Conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 24, 2013. (JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Dr. Richard Lindzen is anything but convinced by headlines claiming 2015 is the warmest year on record. He says what’s most important is that climate models have been over-predicting warming for more than 40 years.

“Frankly, I feel it is proof of dishonesty to argue about things like small fluctuations in temperature or the sign of a trend,” Lindzen, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tells the science blog Climate Depot. “Why lend credibility to this dishonesty?”

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“All that matters is that for almost 40 years, model projections have almost all exceeded observations,” Lindzen says. “Even if all the observed warming were due to greenhouse emissions, it would still point to low sensitivity.”
Scientists with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2015 the hottest on record Wednesday, with the average global temperature reaching 0.87 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average.





Democrats and environmentalists used the news to push for more government action on global warming, but what they neglected to mention is temperatures were driven up last year by an incredibly strong El Niño — a naturally occurring warming event.

The strong El Niño briefly brought global temperatures to levels predicted by most climate models, but it’s likely that once the warming event goes away temperatures will move back down to levels well below what climate scientists say will happen if more carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.

“But, given the ‘pause.’ we know that natural internal variability has to be of the same order as any other process,” Lindzen says.

Lindzen and other experts skeptical of hyped-up claims about man-made global warming argue those who claim 2015 is the hottest on record ignore the fact the changes in global temperature being observed are very small.


He also cautions that surface-based temperature readings — taken by weather stations, buoys, ships and other means — are subject to biases and errors that can make them highly unreliable. Lindzen has pointed out in the past that “70% of the earth is oceans, we can’t measure those temperatures very well.”

“They can be off a half a degree, a quarter of a degree,” he said in November. “Even two-10ths of a degree of change would be tiny but two-100ths is ludicrous. Anyone who starts crowing about those numbers shows that they’re putting spin on nothing.”

Satellite temperature readings found 2015 to be the third or fourth warmest on record.

Satellite data from the University of Alabama, Huntsville found 2015 to be third warmest on record, and Remote Sensing Systems satellite data ranked 2015 as the fourth warmest in the nearly four-decade-old satellite record.

Koch: "Here's some money to write bollocks slagging off the climate change scientists".

Lindzen: "Thanks, I know loads of senile old coffin dodgers who will lap the shit up even though I have no training in climate science".

Richard Lindzen is one of the approximately 3 percent of climate scientists who believe the human influence on global warming is relatively small (though Lindzen is now retired, no longer doing scientific research). More importantly, he's been wrong about nearly every major climate argument he's made over the past two decades. Lindzen is arguably the climate scientist who's been the wrongest, longest.

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...nge-scepticism

err well , it helps having the 'statisticians ' rigging and readjusting historical data on your side..
they have even blatantly and shamelessly totally removed the 1999 to 2014 pause in global warming from the records.
like some politician airbrushed from history in a totalitarian state.

When are you guys going to realize you have been brainwashed and radicalized, pledging allegiance to political correctness and all it's tenants ..
Try thinking for yourself and being more suspicious and critical then you will be less vulnerable to extreme views...

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Koch: "Here's some money to write bollocks slagging off the climate change scientists".

Lindzen: "Thanks, I know loads of senile old coffin dodgers who will lap the shit up even though I have no training in climate science".

Richard Lindzen is one of the approximately 3 percent of climate scientists who believe the human influence on global warming is relatively small (though Lindzen is now retired, no longer doing scientific research). More importantly, he's been wrong about nearly every major climate argument he's made over the past two decades. Lindzen is arguably the climate scientist who's been the wrongest, longest.

The Weekly Standard's Lindzen puff piece exemplifies the conservative media's climate failures | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | The Guardian

And what does Koch money have to do with Lindzen?
Your article from the Guardian shows proof of nothing, more of an opinion piece.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

And what does Koch money have to do with Lindzen?

The mere fact that you have to ask that shows that you've done no research and have no fucking idea what you are blabbing about.

Just whip up to NE Thailand and try and tell everyone the whole world is heating up .

Originally Posted by Ozcol

Just whip up to NE Thailand and try and tell everyone the whole world is heating up .

Try asking them if it's as cold as it has been in previous years.