BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

It seems to have been limited to disappearing ice (rather than fundamental concepts of AGW) and originated with this ....

More exactly, it related to the recent overblown statement of mountain ranges being ice free by 2035, as such it had almost nothing to do with the underlying concepts of AGW.

Something I feel they are failing to do.

So in what ways do you think they are failing to provide an authorative assessment of the scientific evidence?

Yes as is so often the case the tabloid headline failed to live up to the actual evidence hence my disclaimer about wanting to check it first.

It is still an awkward piece of news for those concerned though.

On the point of where I feel they are failing to provide an authoritative assessment of the scientific evidence, well they don't seem to be convincing anyone in authority enough to make a significant difference.

If, as stated earlier, the simple science of rising atmospheric CO2 driving up global temperatures is accurate then we are, as a species, in really deep trouble because atmospheric CO2 is rising at an accelerated rate with little apparent effort to even slow this rate down.

Australia claims to be on its way to being carbon neutral but exports vast amounts of coal to China who in turn claim to be doing their bit by building wind farms that get exported to Europe, and by the time they arrive those wind farms have a carbon footprint so great that they will never pay it back within their operating lifespan. It is actually making the situation worse not better.

I want to know why power/fuel is not being rationed, because if things are really as bad as they say then it should be.
I don't want this to happen but I really can't see any other way of slowing things down.

[M Paul Lloyd]

The problem is the world governments are merely paying lip service to the problem of CO2 emissions and just pass it on down the line. Which suggest to me that they don't really believe the science but rather like the idea of making money out of it, therefore I feel the IPCC has failed to get their point across.

The UK government's chief environment scientist has called for more openness in admitting Britain's apparent cuts in greenhouse gases are an illusion.
Robert Watson says that if emissions "embedded" in imported goods are counted, UK emissions are up, not down.
He says the same syndrome is true for other rich nations which off-shored manufacturing industry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11172239

And addressing another of my pet hates, excessive nocturnal illumination, it really would be a good idea to start turning the lights off at night and not just for energy saving reasons.

A growing number of New York sky-scrapers are switching off their lights to help reduce the number of birds hitting the high-rise buildings.
The "lights out" project - organised by NYC Audubon - runs until 1 November, when migratory birds are expected to have completed their autumn migrations.
The Empire State and Chrysler buildings are among those dimming their lights.
An estimated 90,000 birds each year are killed in the city as a result of striking glass-fronted buildings.
Organisers of the annual initiative, now in its fifth year, say the bright lights disorientate the migrating birds and override their natural navigational cues.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11141196

[Shadowwolf]

On the point of where I feel they are failing to provide an authoritative assessment of the scientific evidence, well they don't seem to be convincing anyone in authority enough to make a significant difference.

They are being authoritative on the science, however they cannot force anyone to do anything and if those in a position to effect change won't because they have more short term issues, or because they allow themselves to be easily convinced otherwise because it suits them, well it's not really a fault of the IPCC.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I suppose so Mr.S....... but I do wonder if someone a tad more qualified than an ex railway engineer with a degree in economics might not make a better representative for a world climate change body?

[M Paul Lloyd]

To be honest I feel that this is more of a problem than actual global warming, and although I accept that the two may be linked, I was also lead to believe that a warmer climate would lead to a wider distribution of the planets water and after all, that glacial melt water has to be going somewhere??

Water map shows billions at risk of 'water insecurity'

About 80% of the world's population lives in areas where the fresh water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis.
Researchers compiled a composite index of "water threats" that includes issues such as scarcity and pollution.
The most severe threat category encompasses 3.4 billion people.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say that in western countries, conserving water for people through reservoirs and dams works for people, but not nature.
They urge developing countries not to follow the same path.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11435522

[Flakkarin]

Well, I think I may have said this somewhere else, but melting of continental and mountain glaciers actually reduces the water available for a community. Glaciers melt every summer, and when the climate is stable this amount is predictable and constant, so that a community can plan for that availability of water.
At first, extra melting may seem like a good thing that increases the available water. But think about it: the accelerated melting reduces the size of the glacier, and the point is quickly reached where extra melting in proportion to the size is actually less than the original, stable summer melt, since the glacier is so small compared to the original size. The initial extra water actually may worsen the situation, as people are short-sighted and may adapt to more water: a situation which is quickly reversed.

Needless to say, polar ice cap melting releases water into the sea, which is no good for anyone. And of course, the majority of water issues are due to overpopulation and pollution, but global warming would worsen these already stressed situations. Global warming may not be such a bad thing on its own if we hadn't already trashed the place in a myriad of other ways!

[Shadowwolf]

Well here be the latest on how warm was this summer just passed was, from NASA no less,

An unparalleled heat wave in eastern Europe, coupled with intense droughts and fires around Moscow, put Earth’s temperatures in the headlines this summer. Likewise, a string of exceptionally warm days in July in the eastern United States strained power grids, forced nursing home evacuations, and slowed transit systems. Both high-profile events reinvigorated questions about humanity’s role in climate change.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/summer-temps.html

[M Paul Lloyd]

Climate Change, a summary of the science.
http://royalsociety.org/climate-change- ... f-science/

This is the updated version after some 43 members of the Royal Society objected to the wording of the original for not mentioning areas of uncertainty, which was bordering on falsification of the evidence and that, apparently, is the most dreadful offence science can commit.
I for one was very pleased to see such honesty being applied in practice............. however I am still a little concerned about some of the detail so I'm seaking some explanations of areas that just don't work for me.

Now I might be tilting at windmills here but paragraph 5 seems to be inferring that the infra-red energy from the atmosphere (greenhouse effect) is in some way additional energy that would not normally be part of the climate system, but there can be no additional energy, what we get from the sun is what there is, otherwise it breaks the laws of thermodynamics. I fully accept that this could be trapped solar energy which would accumulate creating an imbalance but it doesn't actually say that, at least not to me at any rate.

The only possible sources for any 'additiona'l energy are those produced by volcanic and human activity, which (unless I have missed something fundamental) seems to be completely ignored in all the current models and calculations, it never gets a mention beyond the odd reference to heat islands and the spread of urban development but no-one seems to be trying to quantify this 'additional' energy humans are pumping into the bio-sphere on a daily basis. Rather the emphasis is always on CO2 production and its greenhouse effect on global temperatures as it traps infra-red solar energy in the atmosphere. Now putting aside volcanic activity, we humans actually produce/consumed during 2008 something in the region of 131,000,000,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy, and if my calculations are correct its equivilent to around 0.6 watts per square metre per second of solar energy or using the Royal Societies units 0.6 Wm -2. This might not seem like a lot but the current climate forcing is only 1.66 Wm -2.

This is important because if a portion of the solar infra-red energy cannot escape back into space then nor can a similar portion of this terrestrial infra-red energy. You may well be thinking 'so what?' but whenever anyone makes or uses energy of any kind it results in heat energy being added to the world around us, this is a fundamental law of conservation of energy and mass, so from rubbing your hands together to switching on a nuclear power station it all ends up as heat energy somewhere down the line that is subsequently absorbed by everything around us. I therefore suggest that this additional energy might, in part, account for the less than one degree centigrade increase in global temperatures recorded over the last 160 years (0.8 degrees centigrade since 1850, paragraph 21) without so much reliance on forcing from atmospheric gases or their infered greenhouse effect. Either that or the IPCC have got their sums radically wrong.

And then again Methane, which is described as rising at an unprecedented rate over the 800,000 year record as detailed in paragraph 27 but is said to have a smaller contribution than CO2 in paragraph 6 and is thus presumably not taken into consideration when greenhouse gases are discussed more widely. Equally when water vapour is mentioned (it conveniently being a bi-product of global warming) they seem to ignore the fact the clouds not only insulate but also reflect sunlight away from the Earth although in paragraph 47 it is pointed out that this area is still poorly understood.

In paragraph 30 they mention that Carbon Dioxide and climate are linked due to evidence of ice core samples (they fail to state which ones sadly) but I seem to recall that ice core samples show a very different picture and during many of the great ice ages CO2 levels were believed to be much higher than today. As for paragraph 24 whilst I accept that we have no satellite record for the major ice sheets prior to 1970 we did have plenty of directly observed evidence that the ice sheets in both the Arctic and Antarctic were increasing prior to this time and this was, in part, the basis for the very real concern that we might have been heading into a new ice age. Memories seem to be short on this score but people really were worried about the amount of winter ice in the Baltic and I distinctly recall 'tabloid' predictions that the North Sea might freeze over (in winter) by the end of the 20th century, obviously it didn't.

In paragraph 34 we are told that solar activity is still an area of research, and that is some improvement over the previous stance 'that it was of little or no significance' and presumably this change of heart helped influence the IPCC to state that recent 'cooling' is the result of a reduction in solar activit?.
We know that variations in solar activity has an effect on other planets in our solar system therfore it seems quite likely it will have a similar, if small, effect on the Earth..

The rise in sea levels is mentioned in paragraph 45, but a 20cm rise per century, dramatic though it may sound, is not exactly unexpected given that there is good archaeological evidence to show that a 2mm per year rise (which is the same thing after all) since the end of the last ice age would result in the 24 metre sea level rise we observe today. After all its where the English Channel came from. Yes sea levels are rising but they have been doing so quite naturally for millennia but no actual increase in this rate has yet been reliably observed.

No mention is made of the research into just how fast billions of tonnes of ice can melt given current or even predicted global temperatures and how places like Antarctica would have to experience a rise in temperature in the order of 30 degrees centigrade for a significant amount of the ice to melt as rapidly as some models appear to predict, and even though they accept that computer models are flawed, on short term and local predictions, they seem reluctant to accept that they might also be wrong on the long term global issues. I find this difficult to grasp I'm afraid, if only because the longer you usually run a complex programme the more unreliable they ususlly become.
Also the Mann 'hockey stick' graph fails to get a mention, despite it being a cornerstone of anthropogenic global warming, nor is any mention made of the Archeological and historical evidence that the climate was much warmer prior to 800bc and then warmed during the Medieval period only to cool again during the little ice age, all of these perfectly natural climate variation remain virtually ignored and I find this worrying.

But the information that will cause climate scientists the biggest headache is contained in paragraphs 46 to 50 inclusive 'Aspects that are not well understood' and I have to say that very little of the fundamental science appears to be properly understood at all, which is really quite worrying given how far down the anthropogenic global warming road we have already come. I for one was beginning to accept some of the science as being relaible until I read this.

46 Observations are not yet good enough to quantify, with confidence, some aspects of the evolution of either climate forcing or climate change, or for helping to place tight bounds on the climate sensitivity. Observations of surface temperature change before1850 are also scarce.

47 As noted above, projections of climate change are sensitive to the details of therepresentation of clouds in models. Particles originating from both human activities and natural sources have the potential to strongly influence the properties of clouds, with consequences for estimates of climate forcing. Current scientific understanding of this effect is poor.

48 Additional mechanisms that influence climate sensitivity have been identified, including the response of the carbon cycle to climate change, for example the loss of organic carbon currently stored in soils. The net effect of changes in the carbon cycle in all current models is to increase warming, by an amount that varies considerably from model to model because of uncertainties in how to represent the relevant processes.The future strength of the uptake of CO2 by the land and oceans (which together are currently responsible for taking up about half of the emissions from human activity – see paragraph 26) is very poorly understood, particularly because of gaps in our understanding of the response of biological processes to changes in both CO2 concentrations and climate.

49 There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century (see paragraph 45) for a given temperature increase. Similarly, the possibility of large changes in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean cannot be assessed with confidence. The latter limits the ability to predict with confidence what changes in climate will occur in Western Europe.

50 The ability of the current generation of models to simulate some aspects of regional climate change is limited, judging from the spread of results from different models; there is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except at continental scales.

So given the above admissions I am afraid that the evidence as mentioned in paragraph 57 to the effect that "changes in greenhouse gas concentrations due to human activity are the dominant cause of the global warming that has taken place over the last half century" is possibly not quite as strong as they would like us to think?

Or am I missing the point again?

[Flakkarin]

Goodness, I have my work cut out for me!

Let's get stuck in then. I think the point in paragraph 5 is that the surface is receiving extra energy, not the atmosphere as a whole. It receives the normal radiation from the sun plus extra IR reflected back from the extra CO2 than in a balanced system:

The surface is thus kept warmer than it otherwise would be because, in addition to the energy it receives from the Sun, it also receives infrared energy emitted by the atmosphere.

(By the way, I've never heard the phrase 'tilting at windmills' before....)

Methane does undoubtedly make a contribution, and is usually included when 'greenhouse gases' are discussed, it just has a smaller contribution due to its shorter residence time in the atmosphere.

The ice core data is likely from GRIP and Vostok (Greenland and Antarctica respectively), as these are the longest records (Vostok example CO2 vs temp. http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/vostok-ice-core.jpg)
In these records, CO2 is clearly correlated with temps (low and low, high and high), especially for the ice ages (the last one peaking at 20,000 years ago). It is perfectly possible though that previous ice ages could have higher CO2 levels (though I'd like to see your proof, Sir ), if other climate-forcing factors are sufficiently powerful. For example, if the Milankovitch cycles are all the in 'right positions', or if the ice ages were during the early Earth, when the sun was less powerful, CO2 could easily be a less-important factor. But no such dramatic factors are affecting today's climate.

Solar activity... I'm no expert here, but just thinking ahead, that solar activity likely does have an effect, but if we're only now beginning to have the ability detect it, it must be relatively small. And presumably at some point, CO2 will be at such a concentration with such power that it overwhelms any solar contribution of this sort. But, I'm just musing out loud here

Paragraph 45 is worded very strangely.

it is very likely that for many centuries the rate of global sea-level rise will be at least as large as the rate of 20 cm per century that has been observed over the past century

I think it's trying to say that the rate of sea level rise will at least remain constant (and potentially be larger), instead of falling, as it logically should do as we proceed further from the ice age. Maybe?

I think you're asking too much of this report. It doesn't mention the Hockey Stick graph or specific ice cap research, sure, but it doesn't mention any specific supporting reports either. That doesn't seem to be the point of this report. It is simply introducing the underlying scientific principles, and expressing the amount of confidence in each of these principles.
I think it's foolish for either side to place too much importance on the hockey stick graph. I honestly don' see it as the be all and end all, and in fact many later (and earlier) researches support the conclusions (see here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11646-climate-myths-the-hockey-stick-graph-has-been-proven-wrong.html )

Similarly, if you place too much emphasis on paragraphs 46-50 'Aspects that are not well understood', you are effectively ignoring paragraphs 20-30 'Aspects of climate change on which there is wide agreement'. It's a glass half-full-half-empty situation if you ask me

I can try to go into more detail on something if you wish, but for now I should eat, or at least get out of bed.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Splendid stuff and yes picking out the things that are not well understood is going to lead to an unbalanced view, but its what any 'sceptic' is going to home in on.

You may go into as much depth as you like by the way.

As for 'Tilting at Windmills' that's from Don Quixote a novel written by Spanish author Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1602. The Don is a senile old fool who thinks himself to be a knight and donning makeshift armour mounts an old nag to attack a row of windmills, thinking them to be evil giants........ I thought the analogy was rather fitting myself.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I take it the 0.5 Wm-2 energy production/consumption has little or no bearing? Its just that it does not include secondary energy usage which could quite easily double the original figure?
But yes Paragraph 45 is worded very strangely, to the point that I think it may have been phrased in such a way as to make it sound more dramatic? 20cm is around 8 inches whilst 2mm seems really tiny, but I could be missing the point.

As for the hockey stick graph, well I find it a bit odd that the very evidence that sparked off the whole AGW argument should be so easily left out but I take your point about this being just a summary of the science and not a comprehensive list.

As for paragraphs 46-50 'Aspects that are not well understood', I think by placing them all together like that they have left themselves wide open to misinterpretation, surely it would have been safer to include each caveat with it relevant paragraph? or even as a direct counter to paragraphs 20-30 'Aspects of climate change on which there is wide agreement'?
To my way of thinking they have effectively given critics a page of ammunition with which to shoot them down with.

[Flakkarin]

To be honest, about the secondary energy usage... I have no idea (off the top of my head) Maybe more research is in order (for us I mean, some smart folks have probably got papers on it somewhere...)

I think AGW was first considered when workers were trying to figure out what all the general pollution pumped out by humans was going to do to the atmosphere. The first idea by some was global cooling - but it was soon revised to global warming, by more research and more researchers (hence the whole 'they told us it was going to be an ice age' thing, which is really not the case, there was no 'consensus' at that time, only the first hypothesis of a new area of study). Anyway, the hockey stick was just the first 'proof' of the hypothesis, not what formed it, and has been backed up since (nor has it been 'debunked' if you refer back to the New Scientist article).

Perhaps you or I would have arranged it differently, to make it less 'attackable', but this sort of clarity and transparency... isn't that what you skeptics are always asking for?
I think it was designed this way to be as simple as possible, applying each and every caveat to every proof would quickly make it convoluted and complex. But, I'm sure it could be done, let's take an example...

23: Local temperatures are generally a poor guide to global conditions. For example, a
colder-than-average winter in the UK does not mean that colder-than-average
conditions are experienced globally. Similarly, observed variations in global temperature
over a period of just a few years could be a misleading guide to underlying longer-term
trends in global temperature

50: The ability of the current generation of models to simulate some aspects of regional
climate change is limited, judging from the spread of results from different models;
there is little confidence in specific projections of future regional climate change, except
at continental scales.

So, paragraph 23 effectively says that the fact we cannot simulate regional change is not that important (well, I suppose for the people that live there...) but my point is that regional change does not extrapolate to global change, and the inability to model local change does not mean we can't model global change, and test the outcomes against the real-world measurements.
Generalisation can be so much simpler than specification.

Does this post have (too many parentheses?)

[M Paul Lloyd]

Too many Parentheseseseses, oh I don't know (it may, possibly) but it seems to get 'the' point over (at least for me) so I wouldn't worry, too much.

Anyway on the subject of secondary energy I have to say I can find very little on it other than the stated fact that in 2008 the planets entire energy budget was estimated to be 474x10 to the power of 18 Joules, and that is just the actual energy not, as far as I can tell the additional warming created through inefficiencies, for example a jet airliner will warm the atmosphere via its exhaust heat but also as friction as it passes through the air and at the other end of the scale a light bulb uses electrical energy to make light but also gives off heat and although new age fluorescent bulbs are better they are not perfect, plus any energy, be it heat or light or whatever, it cannot leave the system other than to escape to space like excess solar energy. I just wonder if anyone has given it any real thought when they started worrying about greenhouse gases and solar energy because it could, potentially, make things a whole lot worse.

I can see what you mean about the summary becoming a bit complicated and inaccessible but with my sceptical head on it looks very much as if they are saying 'we know this is happening, and we can prove it, but we might be wrong' which doesn't fill me with confidence, if you see what I mean?

[Shadowwolf]

...but with my sceptical head on it looks very much as if they are saying 'we know this is happening, and we can prove it, but we might be wrong' which doesn't fill me with confidence, if you see what I mean?

Is that not a fairly standard scientific position though? The caveat that in the absence of the mountains of evidence in truly well established theories there is the real possibility of being wrong in light of any new discovery. Hence declaring it fact and end of story is a little too much.

[M Paul Lloyd]

It is, I agree 'a fairly standard scientific position' and quite rightly so, however AGW is being publicised as proven fact so I have to ask, based upon what evidence?

After all a 0.8 degree rise in average global temperatures over 160 years is not in line with ever rising CO2 levels as was originally predicted and nor can I find any evidence that sea levels are rising any faster than they have done since the last ice age.

We have heard much of 'once in a century' record weather patterns that are publicised as 'proof' of climate change only to find that these 'once in a century' record's were exceeded within the last fifty years.
All I see is a planet gradually emerging from the last iceage with its usual climate fluctuations that us 'old uns' have been used to for years.

So I have to say that I remain rather sceptical. Sorry.

[Shadowwolf]

It is, I agree 'a fairly standard scientific position' and quite rightly so, however AGW is being publicised as proven fact so I have to ask, based upon what evidence?

But is this not the work of the media? I'm not so sure that the climate scientists are speaking so definitively on the science, I may be mistaken but I reckon that claims of fact come from elsewhere. Unsurprisingly these sources will also be light on the evidence, because magazine or paper articles and five minute news slots cannot be bothered to relate the info and frequently would be wasting their time as their audience is not equipped or interested to interpret it anyway. The evidence is in the the work of a great many climate scientists and the journals they publish in, it is there one must look.

It would be much the same for the reports of imminent surges in sea levels or extreme weather as proof of climate change — which if in greater frequency would be indicative of climate change, they are mainly driven by news media creating attention grabbing, sensationalist headlines.

If I'm right in seeing this as mostly the work of the media then those claims are irrelevant to the veracity of the evidence for human influenced climate change, you therefore cannot beat the scientists over the head for the hyperbole of poor journos.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I agree, and I have to say I am 100% behind any aspiring journalist who intends to put the record straight.

But if the science is a bit open to variables then I suspect that the worlds goverments are paying little more than lip service to the evidence.

My main concern is that the things we are being told will save the planet obviously won't.

Low energy light bulbs seem like a great idea but they are horrendously carbon hungry to manufacture and without that additional heat that the old bulbs used to give out so the average heating system will stay on a bit longer to compensate, thus little or no actual saving will be made, we are told to conserve energy but street lighting is growing exponentially and no-one seems to realise how bad gas powered barbecues and garden heaters really are, we are told to buy new efficient cars that have a quite staggering manufacturing carbon footprint or electric versions which use batteries that rely on rare finite resources themselves and whilst the country careers headlong towards a very serious energy crisis (UK power generating capacity will be 30% below demand by 2020) wind farms are being built that will never even recover the carbon they cost to build let alone come within a tenth of providing the power we will need when our power generating industry implodes in ten years time.

We seem to be doing the opposite of what we should be doing, buying stuff that makes very little difference instead of cutting back and making things run more efficiently.

The future is, I am afraid, looking a bit bleak.

[M Paul Lloyd]

And on an environmental note, I was watching part of a wildlife progamme last night where a scientist was sholwing how CO2 made sea water more acidic which is apparently killing colar reefs.
I watched as he blew into a beaker as a digital readout went to 7.8 on the ph scale and although I accept that this experiment obviously made the water less alakaline neutral ph is around 7.0 so the water was not actually acidic at all, which struck me as a rather unfortunate misrepresentation of the facts.
The seas are less alkaline due to increased CO2 but no more acidic surely?

[The Beige Avenger]

PS, the solubility of CO2 in water decreases with temperature i.e. colder water will take on more CO2 or warmer water (isn't that one of the problems) will become less susceptible to CO2 uptake

His experiment sounds like a bit of a rough model only to show the effect... not a quantifiable experiment from what I've got pictured.

Just dipping my toes in this one

[M Paul Lloyd]

You are most welcome Mr.A the more the merrier I say.

As experiments go I didn't find it all that convincing but I suspect a large proportion of the viewing public are now quite certain that the oceans are turning to acid as we speak!!

Thing is I have kept tropical marine fish in the past and although they can be extremly sensitive to changes in ph value as I remember it nitrates and ammonia levels were the biggest headache and you couldn't just bung a few fish in with some gravel and rock you had to create a minature self contained biological cycle with urchins and 'live' rock and molluscs plus a load of other things I can't recall. Point is even the slightest change to the enviroment could cause everything to go belly up but a reduction in alkalinity only slows coral growth, I'm not aware of it actually killing the stuff. Besides if sea water ever got close to being acidic all the calcites (which are amongst the most abundant substances in the oceans) would very quickly redress the balance.

I'm going off that Attenborough chap.