Forth Road Bridge - now in intensive care

[pete]

What global warming?

The doom mongers are all shtting themselves as global temperatures have been static for the last 20 years and their grim predictions of boiling seas are not happening, hence the current trend of 'adjustments' of historical temperature records so the graphs look right.

<kidding>Are you typing this from a ranch somewhere in Montana, walls covered with diagrams showing why the twin towers weren't hit by aircraft and how vaccinations are just are conspiracy by big pharma?</kidding>

I wasn't aware of any adjustments of graphs? Where are you getting that from?

Everything that I've seen talks of a consensus within science that that planet's climate is changing as a result of human behaviour...

[kenny]

Have a google of 'NOAA adjusted temperature data', and you will find hundreds of websites and articles. Take your pick which one you want to believe.

Background. Climate alarmists in the past have made dire predictions of ice free poles and snow will be a thing of the past etc, unfortunately the earths temperature for the last 20 years has been the same, certainly no statistical increase, otherwise known as 'the pause'. The expensive computer models never predicted this length of stall in the temperature and they are struggling to explain why, so one clever way around was some simple revisionism to historical records based on spurious anecdotal reasoning.

I don't really want to drag this further off topic but I would just like to point out the following before you offhandedly dismiss it as conspiracy bollocks:

I believe our climate is changing, it has changed as long as the earth has had a climate and will continue to change with or without our help.

We are certainly affecting the climate locally, due to deforestation, land use change, alteration of waterways and lakes, dams, urban heat islands etc etc. There is no doubt that this can have an affect on local weather and climate, whether its changing climate on a global scale is harder to prove.

Adding increased carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will increase temperature.

I doubt you will find anyone who disagrees with the above. Thing is, of the total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we contribute 3% and the rest is there naturally, carbon dioxide makes up 3% of greenhouse gases. So quite a small input into a chaotic system with hundreds of influencing factors.
Lots of people have staked careers on this and it has become massively politcised.
Personally, I think the likelihood of 'dangerous climate chaos' is overstated and in actual fact will have minimal to no impact on our lives or that of our children. I also believe the level of alarmism and politics surrounding global warming is detrimental to other genuine environmental concerns.

Please don't hit out with the 'consensus', there isn't one, science isn't done that way and there is still a rather lively debate going on regarding the climate.

And back to engineering...

[Stephen]

Something that struck me is that the magnetic poles of the earth are reversing. They do this continually. What effect does a reversal of the earth's magnetic field have on the weather? This is but one aspect of the world that is in continual flux.

[kenny]

I am not sure they are currently in the process of reversing although we know they have in the past and could do again, however this is one of the many contentious issues of the debate that's not happening.

A few scientists have proposed that changes in the earths magnetic field is responsible for much of the recent warming not co2. That's recent as in, since the last ice age.

[Stephen]

Kenny being a hill walker you have to adjust for the variance. When I was a lad it was add 6 deg it's now effectively zero. I understand it is a constant and gradual movement.

[kenny]

I know the poles wander about, just not sure that they are actually reversing at present.

[robin]

There is a lot of data that (without implying any causality) indicates that the climate is changing and that it is a threat to parts of humanity from this (rising sea levels, changes in ocean temperatures, glacial retreat, etc.).

There is some data that can be disputed or indicates the exact opposite.

Some of the data will turn out to be an inevitable consequence of something outside of our control, I am sure, but not all of it.

True science will probably never explain the climate and all the factors that affect it - there are just too many to model them all cost effectively - even if it would turn out to be possible, which I suspect it would not.

You will wait for all time for "scientific proof" - for starters science doesn't really allow for proofs that don't come with some form of statistical probability, almost always backed up by repeatable scientific experiment - it's not obvious where that experiment is going to be held in the absence of another couple of planets to mess about with.

Thus you're only left with common sense, consensus and politics.

What would the best course of action be, today, assuming that there is not really going to be any new science in the next 20 years?

Increase CO2 output or reduce it?

Cheers,
Robin

[kenny]

Increase CO2 output or reduce it?

It's been estimated that by 2036 implementing the climate change act will have cost the taxpayer £1.3 trillion. The temperature reduction from the reduced co2 has been calculated at a whopping 0.0204C.

Maybe if we just stuck the money in the bank instead we could deal with the devastating impact of climate chaos when or if the dangerous 0.0204C rise happens.

The trouble for me is these scientists are now activists, a lot of the published science is simply propaganda. Data is always adjusted, the raw data is often withheld and on rare occasions that it is provided it's found to be sadly lacking (see hockey sticks 1 & 2). Some of the science really is quite flimsy, we seem to be spunking rather a lot of money at it.

£1.3 trillion

1,300,000,000,000,000,000

That's a large number.

[tenkfeet]

£1.3 trillion

1,300,000,000,000,000,000

That's a large number.

Madness, you could get 40 Trident submarines for that.

[robin]

I think I can take from that you would be in favour of reducing it if it cost less than £1.3trillion.

Or are you saying you're not in favour of reduction and you also object to the cost of doing so?

Cheers,
Robin

[ironside]

£1.3 trillion

1,300,000,000,000,000,000

1,300,000,000,000 nowadays

[Sanjøy]

Shut again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-35461753

[rossybee]

Shut again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-35461753

Aye, but due to yet another storm with a name (why do they have names these days???), f*ck all to do with structural issues...

[BiggestNizzy]

Shut again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-35461753

Aye, but due to yet another storm with a name (why do they have names these days???), f*ck all to do with structural issues...

Its probably the SNP's fault.

[robin]

Aye, but due to yet another storm with a name (why do they have names these days???), f*ck all to do with structural issues...

Its probably the SNP's fault.

What the SNP are to blame for the name of storms? That would explain hurricane baw'bag