It's Scorchio today!!!! :sweet: :sweet: :sweet:

long may it continue, so I don't have to turn on the central heating!!!!

Surely yes, tell you what, as I am a well balanced unbiased individual who just tells it like he see's it, here are some articles to read for those that are interested

1)

The headline article in this months 'New Scientist' Magazine reveals the establishment of a direct link between Solar Activity and Global Climate. If you only buy one scientific magazine this month buy this one.

As have long been suspected by myself and others solar activity DOES affect our climate with periods of reduced activity and sunspots causing a reduction in global temperature (and vice versa).

Researchers have found that while the total energy output of the sun only changes by 0.1% over centuries the amount of ultraviolet light entering the upper atmosphere can alter by a factor of 100.

An active sun increases this ultraviolet light reaching the upper atmoshre which changes the vertical profile of atmosperic temperatures and circulation patterns.

In addition, increased solar activity reduches the amount of Cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere which reduches solar reflecting cloud formation.

Now I dont want to say 'I told you so' but this peer reviewd research proves a direct link between solar activity and climate and these arguments were first exposed by Nigel Calder in his 1998 book 'The Manic Sun'.

So does this disprove AGM.......................certainly not!

The authors stress that only 30% of observed warming can be put down to these solar effects but this is still a significant amount, for once this research need not be seized on by sceptics or supporters of the AGW theory, Instead it offers a balanced approach that recognises AGW while acknowlegding that the Earths climate is capable of changing itself. An idea that many politicians still can not to understand.

Interestingly this article states that solar activity is about to crash to very low levels more like that of the Little Ice Age. This will help cancel out some of the AGW and give mankind one last chance to cut CO2 emmisions before this temporary solar effect fades.

The authors stress that any cooling of the climate due to natural solar effects must not be used to disprove AGW or hold back on CO2 reductions, instead it will give us a much needed breathing space.

So what of the next two decades?...If the forcast of a solar Activity crash are correct (and the authors are fairly confident) then the Earths temperature will stabalise or even cool over the next 20 years. Indeed the current peak in global temperatures has already been passed in 1998, while the reduced solar activity will affect the strength of the Northern Hemisphere Jetstream and make negative NAO winters much more likely (Europe seems particularly sensitive to the solar link due to changes in the NAO...the authors conclusion not mine).

This piece of research should help set up agreement between AGW sceptics and the main scientific community and I for one are looking forward to the colder winters that will follow the reduction in solar activity over the next two decades....Another 1979 winter anyone?

An article from last year which makes interesting reading.

Warmer, wetter and better(or the good news that the climate change lobby doesn't want you to hear)

By Robert Matthews. The Telegraph.
(Filed: 12/06/2005)

Warmer, wetter and better(or the good news that the climate change lobby doesn't want you to hear)
Just when it seemed that the dark clouds had lifted, they all came back again. Not Britain's on-again, off-again summer, but climate scientists calling for action to prevent global catastrophe.

Last Wednesday, the scientific academies of all the G8 major industrial nations, as well as Brazil, China and India, said that they were now convinced that humans were chiefly to blame for making the planet hotter, and that measures must be taken to combat climate change.


Click to enlarge
In an unprecedented joint communiqué, the academies declared that: "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action," adding that the threat posed "is clear and increasing".

Lord May, the president of the Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific institution, put it more bluntly: "Never before have we faced such a global threat. And if we do not begin effective action now, it will be much harder to stop the runaway train as it continues to gather momentum."

Lord May is clearly hoping that his apocalyptic statement will win the ear of policymakers who have so far shown a reluctance to take any kind of drastic action. He may also be hoping that it will see off those dissenting scientists who remain sceptical of claims that humans are causing potentially catastrophic climate change.

Vilified as "climate-change deniers", they have been accused of being everything from lackeys of the oil industry to just plain stupid.

Yet, just as the clamour for action grows in anticipation of next month's G8 meeting in Scotland, another group of academics has begun fighting to have its voice heard. It includes experts in fields ranging from agriculture to medicine, and most of them agree that something strange is happening to the Earth's climate.

Where they part company with Lord May is in their assessment of the threat it poses. After studying the likely consequences for everything from crop yields to human health, their results are anything but apocalyptic. They have found that a hotter planet brings with it many benefits, and that humans can adapt perfectly well to it.

Indeed, far from joining the calls for action, some now warn that trying to prevent climate change could prove far more catastrophic than learning to live with it. Nor is this cheery vision based solely on questionable computer models. Analysis of past episodes of dramatic - but entirely natural - climate change repeatedly shows the benefits of a warmer world.

"If you could vote for a change in climate, you would always want a warmer one," says Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at the University of London. "Cold is nearly always worse for everything - the economy, agriculture, disease, biodiversity".

According to Prof Stott, times of historical prosperity have often been tied to unusually warm periods, such as the so-called Medieval Warm Period between 1100 and 1300. In contrast, the Little Ice Age between 1450 to 1890 was characterised by famines, pandemics and social upheaval. "We should be glad we've left that behind," he said.

The possibility that a warmer future could bring further benefits has long been noted by climate-change scientists, albeit reluctantly. The draft of the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - regarded as the voice of mainstream scientific opinion - conceded that many developed nations could make "net economic gains", at least for moderate levels of warming. This rare glimmer of optimism was watered down when the final report emerged in 2001.

Since then, however, studies by researchers in a host of fields have cast doubt on the relentlessly gloomy forecasts. The heat-wave that struck much of Europe in 2003, killing more than 11,000 in France alone - was seized on by ecoactivists as proof-positive of the lethal effects of global warming.

Yet a review published last year by scientists at the University of London pointed out a basic medical fact: in many countries, cold kills far more people each year than heat. For the kind of temperature rise predicted for the UK over the next 50 years, the team estimated that heat-related deaths would rise by about 2,000 a year - but that this figure would be dwarfed by a cut in cold-related deaths of 20,000.

Other climate-related health scares have collapsed under close scrutiny. In 2002, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, added his voice to claims that Britain could be facing the return of malaria.

A subsequent analysis by experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine concluded that changes in land use and socio-economic trends made the risk "highly unlikely". Oddly, the lifting of this eco-threat was not widely reported.

It is a similar story with agriculture. During the 1990s, researchers repeatedly claimed that global warming would have dire consequences for key crops. Even developed nations such as America were predicted to suffer. Apocalyptic scenarios of a sweltering world unable to feed itself began to gain currency.

Once again, however, more sophisticated studies are revealing a different picture, having taken account of a factor so often ignored: human adaptability. Global warming is also routinely regarded as disastrous for everything from Alpine ski resorts to tropical beaches.

Yet the picture now emerging from more sophisticated studies is far less apocalyptic. Last year, a team at the University of Hamburg showed that a modest temperature rise would lead to 30 per cent more tourists visiting countries such as Russia and Canada.

The benefits to UK tourism may also be substantial, according to a recent study by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which concluded: "We may witness not only an expansion in the domestic market, but an expansion in the inbound international market as the UK develops a more Mediterranean climate."

Even the frightening prospect of rising sea-levels caused by the melting of the polar ice caps - widely regarded within the climate-change lobby as one of the most devastating consequences of global warming - is now under serious scrutiny. Millions of people, from those living in the coastal cities of the West to the inhabitants of Pacific islands, are at risk, we were warned.

But then the early claims of 5ft rises started to give way to far less dramatic predictions; the most recent estimate, published last year by the International Quaternary Association, puts the figure at a sea-level rise of somewhere between 8in and zero. A recent study found that sea levels around the allegedly threatened Maldives have actually fallen.

In any case, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now concedes that there is little fear of millions being made permanently homeless by flooding. Its most recent report states: "Human settlements are expected to be among the sectors that could be most easily adapted to climate change, given appropriate planning and foresight."

Climate scientists have made little of the benefits of a warming planet, and even less of the ability of humans to cope with the consequences. From the changes in irrigation and new crops made by American farmers that prevented a repetition of the 1930s Dust Bowl, to the sea-wall system that protects northern Vietnam, there is no lack of evidence for human inventiveness in the face of climate change.

Yet this is routinely left out or played down in predictions of the impact of climate change. Describing the likely impact of extremes in weather in his recent book, Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, Sir John Houghton cites 23 threats - adding only in a footnote that all of them could be "lessened by appropriate response measures".

Including them can transform the implications of climate change. "If you just take an agronomic model and make conditions hotter and drier, then, yes, crop yields go down," says Professor Richard Adams, an agricultural economist at Oregon State University. "But if you're a farmer, you see your crops aren't doing so well and plant a more heatresistant type."

Prof Adams is one of a group of academics pioneering the use of studies that take into account such adaptability. The results frequently contradict the simplistic models, with dire losses turning into sizeable gains.

During the 1990s, studies of the impact of climate change on the US agricultural economy predicted huge declines amounting to more than 20 per cent of US Gross Domestic Product. By taking into account adaptation, studies by Professor Robert Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale University, now point to growth of more than 13 per cent.

Ironically, some of the benefits come from the growth-promoting effect of the very greenhouse gas now causing so much alarm: carbon dioxide. Global yields of wheat and rice are expected to rise by 18 per cent, while yields of clover - a key foodstuff for grazing animals - looks set to rise by 36 per cent.

Global vegetation density seems to be benefiting already, with net gains in growth across the whole planet since the early 1980s. Even tropical forests and the Amazon are reported to be growing more luxuriant as CO2 levels rise.

"I am optimistic about the future," Prof Adams told The Sunday Telegraph. "I am continually amazed by what farmers can do. We are not going to have mass starvation."

According to Prof Adams, the real problems lie in distributing the food that is grown - and ensuring that developing nations have the means to develop new crops. Many economists are convinced that the best hope of that lies in continued economic growth. Their fear is that this is precisely what is now being threatened by the calls for immediate action over global warming.

"Economic studies clearly show it will be far more expensive to cut greenhouse gases than to pay for the cost of adapting to a warmer planet", says Professor Bjorn Lomborg, of Copenhagen Business School and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, whose critique of the climate change debate has incensed environmentalists.

Even if we shut every fossil-fuel power station, crushed every car and grounded every aircraft, the Earth's climate would still continue to get warmer, according to Prof Stott. "The trouble is, we would all be too impoverished to cope with the consequences," he said.

you could also have a quick peak at this to see the effect of sea level rising

http://flood.firetree.net/

Or this


They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century.

The Arctic climate varies naturally, but the researchers conclude that human-induced global warming is at least partially responsible.

They warn the shrinkage could lead to even faster melting in coming years.

"September 2005 will set a new record minimum in the amount of Arctic sea ice cover," said Mark Serreze, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Boulder, Colorado.

"It's the least sea ice we've seen in the satellite record, and continues a pattern of extreme low extents of sea ice which we've now seen for the last four years," he told BBC News.

September lows

September is the month when the Arctic ice usually reaches a minimum.

The new data shows that on 19 September, the area covered by ice fell to 5.35 million sq km (2.01 million sq miles), the lowest recorded since 1978, when satellite records became available; it is now 20% less than the 1978-2000 average.

ARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT - SEPTEMBER TREND, 1978-2005

The straight line tracks a more than 8% decline per decade
The current rate of shrinkage they calculate at 8% per decade; at this rate there may be no ice at all during the summer of 2060.

An NSIDC analysis of historical records also suggests that ice cover is less this year than during the low periods of the 1930s and 40s.

Mark Serreze believes that the findings are evidence of climate change induced by human activities.

"It's still a controversial issue, and there's always going to be some uncertainty because the climate system does have a lot of natural variability, especially in the Arctic," he said.

"But I think the evidence is growing very, very strong that part of what we're seeing now is the increased greenhouse effect. If you asked me, I'd bet the mortgage that that's just what's happening."

Confusing movement

One of the limitations of these records is that they measure only the area of ice, rather than the volume.

"One other factor could be movements of sea ice," said Liz Morris, of the British Antarctic Survey, currently working at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, UK.

"If it all piles up in one place, you might have the same total amount of ice," she told the BBC News website, "and there is some evidence that ice is piling up along the north Canadian coast, driven by changes in the pattern of winds and perhaps ocean currents."

Most data on sea ice thickness comes from records of military submarines, which regularly explored passages under the Arctic ice cap during the Cold War years.




Europe's ice explorer
Submarines can cross the Arctic Ocean along tracks taken decades before, and note differences in the ice thickness above; but that may mean little if the ice itself has moved.

Professor Morris is involved in a new European satellite, Cryosat, which should be able to give definitive measurements of ice thickness as well as extent; its launch is scheduled for 8 October.

But she also believes that the NSIDC data suggests an impact from the human-enhanced greenhouse effect.

"All data goes through cycles, and so you have to be careful," she said, "but it's also true to say that we wouldn't expect to have four years in a row of shrinkage.

"That, combined with rising temperatures in the Arctic, suggests a human impact; and I would also bet my mortgage on it, because if you change the radiation absorption process of the atmosphere (through increased production of greenhouse gases) so there is more heating of the lower atmosphere, sooner or later you are going to melt ice."

Arctic warming fast

Though there are significant variations across the region, on average the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, according to a major report released last year.




Further warming for Arctic
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a four-year study involving hundreds of scientists, projected an additional temperature rise of 4-7C by 2100.

If the current trend can be ascribed in part to human-induced climate change, Mark Serreze sees major reasons for concern.

"What we're seeing is a process in which we start to lose ice cover during the summer," he said, "so areas which formerly had ice are now open water, which is dark.

"These dark areas absorb a lot of the Sun's energy, much more than the ice; and what happens then is that the oceans start to warm up, and it becomes very difficult for ice to form during the following autumn and winter.

"It looks like this is exactly what we're seeing - a positive feedback effect, a 'tipping-point'."

The idea behind tipping-points is that at some stage the rate of global warming would accelerate, as rising temperatures break down natural restraints or trigger environmental changes which release further amounts of greenhouse gases.

Possible tipping-points include

the disappearance of sea ice leading to greater absorption of solar radiation
a switch from forests being net absorbers of carbon dioxide to net producers
melting permafrost, releasing trapped methane
This study is the latest to indicate that such positive feedback mechanisms may be in operation, though definitive proof of their influence on the Earth's climatic future remains elusive

and the Yanks don't even think it's a goer yet?

In what would be a serious volte face Washington rumour boards are awash with the suggestion George Bush is to do a serious U-turn on the administration's current climate change stance. (see: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archiv ... 009522.php)

This follows an extraordinary leader in the Economist (http://www.economist.com/printedition/i ... d=20060909 ) arguing that the current uncertainty requires action and not inaction and calling in its closing paragraph for Bush to be remembered for tackling the issue.

One thing is certain - America needs to concentrate its resources upon this issue, if only in an attempt to disprove the consencus of current scientific opinion. And Bush need no longer suppress his own administrations reports on climate change but confront it. A mish mash of individual state controls cannot be the best way forward for America.

However bush may not have much time to take a stance. The current head of steam this issue has generated threatens to overtake even the White House if it chooses to stand still. I suspect this is the typoe of story Washington doesn't want repeated often...http://www.seedmagazine.com/new ... dscovr.php

I don't think America denies the climate is changing.
They just deny it's their fault!

Right, witcha Fred......

So should Dibble:

a. Build his slide infested swimming pool in his garden up Clavering or:

b. Get his aershole out??

anti lad.
Could you put that all into a few bullet points please?
Say, less than ten.
Ta

what about this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5357606.stm

Scientists make stuff up all the time in order to secure their funding for the following however many years doing cushy little jobs investigating things that don't really exist whilst at the same time trying to cause mass hysteria amongst the half-witted general public who believe what they read in newspapers.

Academics do it all the time, it's all bullshit.

oh right, thanks for clearing that up.

No problem, I hope that you sleep better tonight now.

Sadly (and I am feeling sick at this) but I agree with Ripper on this, the vast majorrity of this is down to funding. There are very few (and I mean none) retired scientists that are backing the AGW debate.

I knew that you'd see the light eventually.

Pretty much in a nutshell sir.

If you build it they will come.

Nick, you can spin any graph the way you like. The CET debate is a dead duck as the quality of the analysis and even the locations have differed greatly, many of these places didn't even have the correct encasing. It's a bit like your car sat in the sun gets a temp reading of 29C and the thermo in the garage where the car should be reads 18C.

Philip Eden's site (he writes for the Telegraph) has the most statistically accurate site on the net

http://www.climate-uk.com/graphs/200511.htm

and even he agrees that we don't have neough data, or correct data. You say 350 years like it is a long time? if it's still melting in 35,000 years you should rightly sh*t it, until then, sit back and enjoy the sun and warmth, it won't last

Well I'll still be a bit sweaty but at least I'll know it's due to natural causes and not the vast industrialisation of the planet altering the composition of the atmosphere.

Yip, your always right :?

it would be a little crass to sugest that a little bunch of animals like the human race can have even a 10th of the impact of a solar anomoly such as a flare or the effect of the solar minima/maxima.

I have posted before and will have to again in the future no doubt but if and i mean IF seas ice melts then Sea less saline, freezes at higher temperature. Sea ice increases.

More sea ice. Salinity increases. Thermohaline sinking starts to increase again.

Nothing is static in natural world. Change is the norm. Not all feedbacks have negative consequences, despite what the AGW machine would have one believe.

I bet it came in over price as well.........

Fuckin'ell....I only said it's a bit warm today and now the thread's turned into a World Summit on Global Warming!!!!

So it appears that Exon and Phillip Morris Tobacco are also paying off bunker posters in addition to "scientists" and "think-tanks".

Here's the only fact you need. Climate change denial, just like the denial that smoking causes cancer, is the result of public relations manipulation from US big business. Most of the science that denies climate change is funded by Exon (no vested interest there). If you want to give me evidence, please show me evidence from a peer reviewed journal.

And you swear at me for being a Guardian reader. He's what George Monbiot thinks of the Torygraph:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/geo ... t_399.html

The USSR never invested much in the way of pollution control.........

back atcha!

You'll be out of a job though

I'm confused now, is Global Warming crap or not?

It's not crap.

It just doesn't exist in the way that the tree huggers and those scientific bods with a vested interest would have you believe.

The ones with the vested interest are in the pocket of the multi-nationals.

BUT, would we all like to return to a life of subsistence farming and running around naked in the woods, and having orgies and celebrating pagan Gods - not to mention sacrificing any pains-in-the-arse-type folks after finding them guilty of heresy? Hang on, I'll get me loincloth...............,

I'll take all of that as long as we can keep running water.

and kebabs.............

Kebabs'd be easy, you'd just spit up one of the heretics you've slaughtered and eat slices off them......