Thread: Any doubts about Climate Change?

Originally Posted by beazalbob69

Not saying I disagree with the idea that people are screwing things up, but I don't see how 1 strong storm proves anything other than people get unlucky sometimes.

True, one storm of this kind proves nothing. Just like those comments "We have a very cold summer, there is no Global Warming".

The fact that this kind of weather extreme gets more frequent, does.

Maybe it should be pointed out that poverty caused the large number of casualties, not global warming. That thing hits Florida, bodycount a few dozend.

The surge of Katrina was 8 metres, while Haiyan produced about 4 metres at Tacloban airport. Maybe it's the shape of the coast, or because Katrina was massively larger in size, I recall that the surge arrived before the wind started blowing seriously. Katrina was meaner, it maintained hurricane force for hundreds of kilometres inland, while Haiyan fell apart over the scattered Islands of the Philippines.

Extreme weather events are increasing: yet another green propaganda myth
James Delingpole – Telegraph Blogs

James Delingpole


James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything. He is the author of numerous fantastically entertaining books, including his most recent work Watermelons: How the Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children's Future, alsoavailable in the US, and in Australia as Killing the Earth to Save It. His website is www.jamesdelingpole.com.




So I'm a speaker at this conference, a month or two ago, and I've just delivered my spiel about the global warming hysteria being a classic example of the madness of crowds. The audience are gratifyingly impressed: some of them have never heard this stuff before, certainly not expressed in quite so forthright a way. Now there are questions from the floor and one of them comes from a university professor.
Actually – I've seen this before, all too many times: it's how the Warmists roll – there's no question being asked, it's more of a rambling, grandstanding statement. The professor roots his statement in the personal, always a good tactic when you're trying to make your case seem likeable, reasonable, down-to-earth. He tells us how on his travels and in his back garden, he's noticed how very much the seasons have been changing in recent decades, how Autumn is definitely lasting longer and Spring is coming earlier, and glaciers are melting and butterflies are doing whatever it is to indicate that things bain't natural and global warming is real. Then he begins invoking "the science." What the scientists are now telling us, apparently, is that climate change isn't so much a case of global warming as of a chaotic system (my, how the Warmists love that phrase!) being disrupted and leading in turn to "extreme weather events" of a greater intensity than ever before.
(Ah yes. That old chestnut. Didn't the BBC once christen it "global weirding"? They surely did…)
As an example of these "extreme weather events", the learned professor eruditely and loftily cites something he calls – with a straight face – SuperStorm Sandy.
At this point, I've heard quite enough. "It's only called 'SuperStorm' Sandy by places like the BBC and the Guardian and the New York Times for emotive propaganda purposes. And you do realise that it wasn't the strongest category of hurricane. Just a cat 3…" (And only a Cat 1, I should have added, by the time it reached shore).

This, I'm afraid, is where we're at in the great climate debate – and have been for some time. The scenario I've just described will be familiar to absolutely every climate sceptic who has ever appeared on a public platform anywhere: you've come to fight by the rules of the Geneva convention – but there's the opposition using poison gas, napalm, Red Cross ambulances to transport healthy combat troops, slave labour, torture, whatever means comes to hand at any given moment to help them win at every cost.
By which I mean that climate alarmists threw all moral compunction or intellectual integrity out of the window long ago. As we saw in the Climategate emails they smear; lie; twist data; temper with evidence; bully; exaggerate; abuse the scientific method… almost as a matter of routine. When you debate them in public, though, you imagine somehow that they'll rise to the occasion, that they'll behave a bit better when there are other people watching. They never do though.
Their policy, you might say, has been borrowed from Humpty Dumpty in Through The Looking Glass:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

Substitute "piece of cherry-picked evidence" or "factoid" or "scientific reference" or "thing I read somewhere in the Guardian environment pages, can't remember when" for "word" and you'll get an idea of how frustrating it is trying to debate an alarmist. Your case is rooted in empiricism, in observed data, in historical evidence. Theirs might as well have been plucked from a parallel universe – as when, say, the Green party leader Natalie Bennett assured me in a Telegram podcast the other day that if renewables were a disaster for a Britain, how come they'd been such a massive success in continental Europe? No, Natalie – on every objective level renewables have been a total disaster for continental Europe, destabilising the grid, driving up energy prices, killing jobs, causing panic among industries rendered decreasingly competitive by the cost of energy. What you are claiming – whether wittingly or otherwise – is a complete reversal of the truth.
So it was with that professor I mentioned earlier. He hasn't a clue what he's talking about but because he's a professor at a vaguely well-known seat of learning he is able to use his prestige to give the impression of authority. This, on a larger scale, is what Sir Paul Nurse and his nest of Warmists have been doing at the Royal Society: because of his Nobel prize, because he's a knight, because he's head of the world's oldest and most distinguished scientific academy, he is able to make scientific pronouncements which people are inclined to take seriously. Even when he's rumbled – as he was when he got his facts badly wrong on that BBC documentary when he came round to my house to stitch me up - he still emerges with his reputation intact because that's how the world works: most people would rather trust a scientist's lofty credentials than go to the trouble of investigating the veracity of his statements.
All this is a roundabout way of introducing a new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation into extreme weather events. What the report shows is that – contra m'learned professorial friend at that conference the other day; contra Sir Paul Nurse and the Royal Society – there is no more evidence that there has been a recent increase in extreme weather events than there is that we are in the throes of runaway global warming.
Extreme weather events have happened throughout history. It is in the nature of that "chaotic system" my professor friend (inevitably and tediously) cited.

In November 1970 a tropical cyclone killed 250,000 people in Bangladesh.
In July 1969, a Cat 4 or 5 Hurricane Camille struck the Gulf Coast and killed more than 250 people.
The largest one day outbreak of tornadoes in the mid-West was in April 1974.

None of these events was attributed to "man-made climate change" because – fortunately for the people of the 1970s and earlier – that junk science field had not yet been invented.
But look, don't take my word for it, do your own due diligence. Read Madhav Khandekar's report, follow up his citations, and then ask yourself: "Do I prefer to base my opinions on actual evidence? Or would I rather base them on 'feelings in my bones', 'weird stuff I've noticed about the weather which strike me as odd' and 'things I've heard environmentalists say on the BBC and at the Guardian'?"
It's depressing how many people still persist in taking the latter option. But then, we inhabit a particularly crazed and credulous age.

I'd rather believe the university faculties' of geology, earth and ocean studies, climatology and marine biology findings than listen to a spieler as he so aptly describes himself.

Originally Posted by ENT

I'd rather believe the university faculties' of geology, earth and ocean studies, climatology and marine biology findings than listen to a spieler as he so aptly describes himself.

Exactly. And that's the problem.

Originally Posted by Umbuku

Originally Posted by beazalbob69

I wonder what the most powerful storm to ever make landfall before mankind started screwing up the planet was? I bet it was a lot stronger than 195mph.

I have read a few articles about paleo climate and geological evidence indicates that at the height of the warm period in the Cretaceous (that much vaunted "but look it was even higher back then argument from the denial camp") the storms were category 6 to 7 at their strongest with interpolated wind speeds of over 400kph.

The top wind speed probably belongs to cold periods. Cold produces stronger winds than hurricanes today. Antarctica's katabatic winds can blow with 300 kph+ for days and weeks during the winters. Heavy cold air rushes down the slopes, and low pressure systems at the coast intensify them. They also occur on Greenland, somewhat weaker because it's smaller. Record there are 260 kph. People usually don't get in the way of these, but it's not unheared of that settlements on Greenland were blown into the sea. During ice ages, those winds were even stronger in places with higher elevations than Antarctica.

Originally Posted by Rainfall

Cold produces stronger winds than hurricanes today. Antarctica's katabatic winds can blow with 300 kph+ for days and weeks during the winters. Heavy cold air rushes down the slopes, and low pressure systems at the coast intensify them.

That's not entirely correct. Those winds don't derive their strength from cold. It comes from temperature differences. The difference is between the cold ice formation and the warmer sea. They would probably increase in strength when the sea gets warmer.

The buildup of hurricanes is completely different. They derive their energy not from a temperature difference but from warm water.

The waters around Antarctica can't warm as long as it doesn't join with another continent, that's millions of years away. The West wind drift keeps warm currents away, and all that ice on and in the water keeps the temperature at freezing point. The only way to increase the temperature difference between land and sea is more cold on land.

Have to point out here that cold as an energy or force does not exist, only heat does. Maybe you already understand that but the way you have phrased your argument looks like you think cold is a separate energy in competition with heat.

Originally Posted by Rainfall

The only way to increase the temperature difference between land and sea is more cold on land.

So this should read as:

Originally Posted by Rainfall

The only way to increase the temperature difference between land and sea is a reduction of heat on land.

Cold is a subjective term based on we humans interpretation of feeling.

Carry on.

Just using colloquial language because there are regulars in the thread who don't understand the science behind global warming.

It will cost, most all of us.

Climate deniers hate those pesky intrusions of reality. For Insurance giants like Munich Re, Swiss Re, and Lloyds of London, climate change is a reality that is showing up where it hurts most, on the ledgers. The long piece excerpted below is quite an extraordinary investigation for a mainstream publication, and deserves a look.

Globe and Mail:

In the aftermath of the German and Canadian floods, the victims, the insurers, the media, the politicians and the scientists were all asking the same questions: What caused them? Was it the relentless buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide? Could “extreme” weather events become the new normal or were they once-a-millennium acts of god?

In Munich Re’s offices, there wasn’t much debate as the claims cheques flew out the door: The higher frequency of extreme weather events is influenced by climate change; and recent climate change is largely due to burning hydrocarbons. “I’m quite convinced that most climate change is caused by human activity,” says Peter Höppe, head of geo-risks research at Munich Re.

There has been no warming for 15 years
The sea levels have not risen
The ice is still there

Poor global warming nutters....
what to do ????????
ok so they play the extreme weather card ,,,,,,,
with a graph from laughably small sample of 1980 -2010-
They are getting desperate .

Next thing you'll be calling people ,who said all along that the climate changes,
climate deniers .

Originally Posted by blue

There has been no warming for 15 years
The sea levels have not risen
The ice is still there

Poor global warming nutters....
what to do ????????
ok so they play the extreme weather card ,,,,,,,
with a graph from laughably small sample of 1980 -2010-
They are getting desperate .

Next thing you'll be calling people ,who said all along that the climate changes,
climate deniers .

Al Gore - what a douche...

You know I think beating a puppy to death with a kitten would be more rewarding than answering the last two posts.

New paper finds severe drought is more common during cold periods, droughts driven by solar activity
MS / 6 hours ago
A new paper under open review for Climate of the Past finds severe droughts in Eastern China were much more common during the Little Ice Age than during the current warm period, and that no severe droughts occurred in E. China during the past 357 years from 1642-1999. Data from the paper demonstrates there is nothing unusual, unprecedented, or unnatural regarding 20th century drought in Eastern China. The authors also find solar activity was the primary driver of most of the severe droughts over the past millennium.

The paper adds to many other peer-reviewed publications finding droughts and other extreme weather are more common during cold periods in comparison to warm periods, i.e. a warmer climate is a more benign climate.

New paper finds severe drought is more common during cold periods, droughts driven by solar activity

Now that's remarkable. The 10 or 20 worst draughts in terms of casualties all happened in either China or British India/India/Bangladesh during the 19th and 20th centuries, most recently the Great Chinese Draught from 1958 to 1961 which tops them all. That's how Mao achieved his bodycount of 30 million. It didn't happen after all, I see.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

German Scientists Warn Of Coming Cool Period ...

Better start investing in some warm clothes because German scientists are predicting that the Earth will cool over the next century.

German scientists found that two naturally occurring cycles will combine to lower global temperatures during the 21st century, eventually dropping to levels corresponding with the “little ice age” of 1870."

Read the chilling story here
Kinda don't think the science of MMGW is "IN", do you?

How long before... source is unreliable, this "scientist" has no qualifications, his theory has already been debunked, etc, etc.

Come on, let's hear it.

a snowdrift of evidence is piling up that global warming has indeed stopped ....

Antarctica Sees Coldest Weather Ever Recorded On Earth
With snow and ice falling in North America, new data about record cold weather in Antarctica puts things into some perspective.

New analysis from a NASA satellite revealed that East Antarctica reached minus-135.8 degrees in August 2010, NBC reports, the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. Antarctica hit close to that temperature again on July 31,2013 when it reached minus-135.3 degrees.

In announcing the data Monday, the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Ted Scambos said that the temperature is “50 degrees colder than anything that has ever been seen in Alaska or Siberia or certainly North Dakota. … It’s more like you’d see on Mars on a nice summer day in the poles.”

Weather: East Antarctica Reaches Record Cold of Minus-135.8 Degrees | TIME.com