Global Warming

Re: Siberia is kinda big

Hi YD,

Yes, its probably not a good idea to compare a very small place like Ireland with a very big place like Siberia and expect to draw meaningful conclusions.

Better to compare North West Europe to Siberia.

From the cia handbook.

Dublin 53 20N
Vladivostok 43 10N

Siberia (in general) 60N 100E

ajapale
 
First purple - stick to the history, here is a short geography lesson:

a) Siberia is by no means on the same longitudes as us

b) By and large it is much farther north in terms of latitude, which I presume you meant.

c) Gulf Stream is only a small part of the mild climate we have. The fact is that the specific heat of water is much higher than that of land so the sea cools and heats much more slowly than land. There is nowhere in the world were the sea has the same effect as continental land masses, which this bizarre theory of the Gulf stream going walk-about is positing.
Click to expand...

Yep, you got me on that one; I meant latitude.
Ajapale has done a much better job of explaining what I was on about than I did.

On point c if you look at a map showing high altitude wind currents around the world you will see that they follow, to a very large extent, global sea currents. If you want to see how they are related look at what happens when the "El nino" phenomenon occurs. It is an example of weather patterns following a shift in warm water currents.

Reminder of previous popular apocalyptic theories:
Click to expand...
The 1950's was just after the second worlds war (since I should stick to history):b and Europe was importing mast of it's food needs so I would let them away with that one.
The population of the world has doubled since the early 60's so they weren't far wrong, not withstanding your postage stamp slant.
AIDS will kill ten's, if not hundreds of millions of people ....you're right; that's off the wall, no big deal.

Fish; "At least one thing doesn't gel here. The coldest that water can be is zero but temps in Siberia fall to minus forty."
I don't know where to start on that one, what has the freezing point of water got to do with things? Are you saying it can't drop below zero when it's wet!?!
 
Spelling it out for purple

Let us suppose there is this strong current of near freezing water engulfing these isles. The winds from this will tend to keep the land at close to the sea temperatures. Unless I am missing some Carumba effect, currents of flowing water must be above freezing point, hence the land will tend to be brought to this temperature by this influence.

In central Siberia they would give anything for a near freezing sea current which would lift temperatures quite considerably in Winter.
 
Re: Spelling it out for purple

The average temperature only needs to drop by 2 or 3 degrees to effect a major change to change our climate.
I am not a climatologist and I suspect that you are not one either. I have read quite a bit on this in the past but to be honest I couldn't be bothered finding links or going through books to transcribe passages. If that means that I shouldn't be posting on this topic then I will stop but all I am getting back is other unsubstantiated opinions. There are as many theories on global warming as there are wet days in the year so anyone here could back up any opinion if they liked. In other words this thread could go on forever.
Fish, by your logic the sea currents in the southern ocean should keep the ice off Antarctica. As I have said I am no expert (on anything!) but I suspect it's not that simple.
If you do wish to spell it out for me I would be grateful but don't just say it, do it.
 
Common sense

Purple - no expert myself. But is it not common sense that a small island surrounded by water (as opposed to ice) will have a reasonably mild climate - irrespective of the temp of that water. A sea climate can never be as extreme as a mass continental one.
 
Re: Common sense

OK Fish, yes using Siberia was a mistake ( I roo the f**king day!), but things will get colder and wetter if the gulf stream moves north.
This topic was about Global warming so now that my wild exaggerations (to show a legitimate and reasonable prospect) have been shown up I would appreciate it if some kind soul would step in and steer things back to the relevant topic.

Thanks.
 
re blairs speech

It is interesting that blair gave such a high profile speech on this topic. Normally global warming is relegated to the same discussions as recycling and renewable energy namely something we need to do more about in the future. By making this speech he has brought some urgency to it. However I don't think global warming is the issue he is really worried about as nobody really knows if or when global warming will be a real problem. The issue which is much more definite and urgent is the that the world is running out of fossil fuels and other natural resources. He probably doesn't want to address this issue directly because it would cause panic and cause oil prices to soar again. A round about way of addressing this problem is to give the issue of global warming more prominence. The issue of global warming doesn't cause panic because it is difficult for ordinary people to understand. The issue of running out of oil and other resources is readily understood as we witnessed over the last few months. It is also significant that he has given this speech now as the UK for the first time last Autumn became a net importer of oil. The end is now in sight for North Sea oil.
 
Global warming/local freezing

Sorry, purple, I didn't mean to exploit a mistaken analogy - I thought you were quoting from some more formal source.

But, and I must assume that you are not taking the piss, it really is a shock to the system that as the world slowly fries to extinction, we in these islands will actually be freezing - we don't even get to enjoy the good side of the apocalypse.:D
 
Re: Global warming/local freezing

I know whay you mean, the whole planet goes down the poo pipes and we don't even get a sun tan!
 
Re: Planet under Pressure

Next time you hear the News say something like...

"This is the worst storm in 100 years, experts blame global
warming".

Ask yourself what caused the even worse storm that happened 100 years ago.

-Rd
 
Re: Planet under Pressure

Hi Rd,

Point 1. Reliable met records have only been maintained for about 100 years.

Point 2. Press reports of met events are notorious for exaggeration and inaccuracy. Unfortunately the journos have to sell newspapers and few of them have degrees in meteorology.

Point 3. The study of extreem weather events while interesting does not tell us as much about our climate as all the ordinary weather we are experiencing all the time.

Point 4. I think the point being made is that severe storms are getting more frequent as well as perhaps more intense.

As an aside I was reading a retorspective piece in the local newspaper "The Kerryman" from 1968 in which the writer was bemoaning the succession of cool wet summers and wondering if it was the beginning of a new ice age! If I get the reference Ill post it here.

ajapale
 
Planet under Pressure? Put politicians under pressure

One aspect of the environment which hasn't been mentioned is depletion of the ozone layer and the implications of this in speeding up environmental damage from other contributing factors.

The scale of destruction is immense, resulting in bird and animal species disappearing at an exponential rate. Deforestation is increasing on a global scale (an anthropologist friend specialising in Amazon tribes tells me an area of Brazilian forest THE SIZE OF WALES is burnt every week!!!). There is a protest movement in Brazil against this destruction so McDonalds can sell dirt-cheap hamburgers to obese children in Europe and USA but their efforts have not so far stemmed the greed of the multinationals in whose interest the deforestation is being carried out. Immense ice-floes are, indeed, breaking off and drifting southward. This is all documented, public knowledge. Carbon emissions are making the air in some parts of the world (in the centre of Hong Kong people carry oxygen-flasks) unbreathable.

Quibbling about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin won't make it go away. People getting off their arses and putting their concerns into effect by frank and forceful communication with their political representatives before election could give a stay of execution.

It is painful to read the dismissive comment in an earlier post about AIDS which though (thankfully!) is not a major killer in Ireland IS epidemic in Africa. It too could be "stayed" with pressure on politicians and leaders and requisite drugs being made available.

The discussion on relative sizes and importance of different countries gives a clue to an impediment in getting to grips with global warming; the Mercator projection is biassed in favour of Europe and USA and bears no real relationship to the physical sizes of different land-masses. Our thinking, too, often gets sabotaged by the same eurocentricism.
 
Deforestation

Marie, the main cause of deforestation in Brazil is to make room for crops to feed Brazilians not for MacBurger packaging.

On AIDS I was merely pointing out the capacity for a collective apocalyptic mindset to put together a plausible scientific argument of impending catastrophe.

Here was AIDS orthodoxy in the late '80s. AIDS is propulgated in the first place my male homosexuals. Theory - 2.5% of males are H and they are all at it like rabbits - hence the vast majority already have latent HIV, and here was the the subtle scare HIV is latent and only shows through after about 7 years so the time bomb is already planted. Hence all M/Hs were effectively already doomed and if we believe the 2.5% stat about 50,000 Irish Males should by now be dead from AIDS. But the mindset couldn't stop there - along came theories predicting hetero spread. I forget the details but if these theories had been proved correct 10,000 Irish people per year would now be dying of AIDS and there was really nothing we could do to stop it as the seeds had aleady been sown.

The scientific basis for these predictions seemed even more convincing than today's Global Warming version.
 
Re: Deforestation

Here was AIDS orthodoxy in the late '80s. AIDS is propulgated in the first place my male homosexuals. Theory - 2.5% of males are H and they are all at it like rabbits - hence the vast majority already have latent HIV, and here was the the subtle scare HIV is latent and only shows through after about 7 years so the time bomb is already planted. Hence all M/Hs were effectively already doomed and if we believe the 2.5% stat about 50,000 Irish Males should by now be dead from AIDS

Really?
You should read a bit more about the history of AIDS and not let your opinion be swayed by popular culture at the time or what you were hearing in your schoolyard in the late 1980's.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS
"Since most of the originally identified sufferers were homosexual men, the syndrome was initially referred to by doctors as "GRID" (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), and was referred to in some sections of the media as "the gay plague." Almost at once, however, it was realised that the infected population included Haitian immigrants, intravenous drug users, blood transfusion recipients, and heterosexual women as well. The disease was officially renamed AIDS in 1982."
 
Re: Deforestation

Reports in the last few days have said that at the Hawaian monitoring station, which has been monitoring CO2 in the atmosphere since 1956, rates of increase have risen from the 'usual' 1.5 parts per million to approx 2 ppm in the past 2 years.

This has the potential to be catastrophic. We may look back on these few years as the stage when a solution to the Climate Change problem slipped out of our reach.

As for our own National Climate Change Strategy which is supposed to ensure we meet our Kyoto commitments. It amazes me that there is not more uproar over the fact that the government has decided to continue with Moneypoint as a coal fired power plant. A switch to natural gas was due to account for a MASSIVE 22% of the overall greenhouse gas 'reductions' (actually a 13% increase over 1990 levels) envisaged in the Strategy.

The govenment have instead decided to invest in clean up equipment at the plant which will remove much of the air pollutants but will do nothing to reduce CO2 levels. The reasoning presumably is one of energy security (closing Monepoint would leave us 80% dependant on gas for our electricity generation) which is a persuasive argument but we may live to regret such choices.
 
Global Warming Scaremongering

Just heard some "expert" on RTE news stating that Bangla Desh has just had a very big flood for the second time in six years. Normally, he tells us, these would happen every twenty years, ergo we are all doomed!

Forgot to mention that other scare-story that we all got hooked on and which turned out to be a complete non event - Y2K. It simply emphasises our collective gulllibility for these apocalypse theories from the experts who become veritable junkies to the new theory to the great unwashed who accept a few plausible pseudo scientific arguments as gospel.
 
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