As witnessed:

Texas fires: Bastrop blaze prompts Rick Perry warning

Texas Governor Rick Perry said it was not a time for politics as "people's lives and their possessions are in danger"

Headline: Global Warming prevents Dustbowls!

Pass it on.

Of course the weather has never been as bad as it was yesterday. The Dustbowl of the 1930s? Forget it. It is hotter and drier today so it prevents dustbowls.

In what year was the best of all possible climates? I want a year so we have a CO2 target not just guesswork.

I think it is silly to even discuss "how far back" while we are careening madly out of control forward.

Dustbowl was a symptom of commercial farming, somewhat controlled now through mining to depletion of fertilizers, and crop rotation.

Global warming increases strength and frequency of tornados, hurricanes, coral bleeching, loss of ice shelves, loss of ancient ice packs, loss of glaciers, loss of carbon sink, (thereby "naturally" enhancing the man-made effect).

Plenty of scientific study is available to anyone actually looking for valid scientific information. NOAA and NASA are two readily available, deeper study can be found on sites that you would quickly dismiss. Only the conservative pundits and religious zealots continue to deny the scenarios... oh yes, and the gullible they prey upon.

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Janice

... Plenty of scientific study is available to anyone actually looking for valid scientific information. NOAA and NASA are two readily available, deeper study can be found on sites that you would quickly dismiss. Only the conservative pundits and religious zealots continue to deny the scenarios... oh yes, and the gullible they prey upon.

Very good comment. Unfortunately it does seem to be almost a pseudo-religious Marketing FUD-slanging contest rather than cold reasoned debate and any positive action. Is all the Marketing FUD really so powerful? Or are the recent generations still lingering on so ashamed and uncomprehending, or utterly blindly selfish even?


All the indicators are for consistent warming, and consistently for over our industrial period. That matches very well the continuing forced increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Yet another example:

Giant crabs make Antarctic leap

... "Our best guess is there was an event, or maybe more than one, where warmer water flushed up across the shelf and carried some of the larvae into the basin," said project leader Craig Smith from the University of Hawaii.

It is believed that this species cannot tolerate water colder than 1.4C.

The seas here get warmer as you descend; and the crabs were only found below 850m.

The researchers calculate that they have probably been there only for 30-40 years; before that, the water would have been too cold even at the bottom of the Palmer Deep.

They cannot as yet survive on the continental shelf, which is at a depth of about 500m; but that could change.

"If you look at the rate at which the seas are warming, (the continental shelf) should be above 1.4C within a couple of decades, so the crabs are likely then to come into shallower waters," ...


Are the deniers to remain in denial until they die? Just like die-hard tobacco industry suckered smokers?

This is the only planet we have...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

As witnessed:

Texas fires: Bastrop blaze prompts Rick Perry warning

Texas Governor Rick Perry said it was not a time for politics as "people's lives and their possessions are in danger"

Headline: Global Warming prevents Dustbowls!

Pass it on.

Of course the weather has never been as bad as it was yesterday. The Dustbowl of the 1930s? Forget it. It is hotter and drier today so it prevents dustbowls.

In what year was the best of all possible climates? I want a year so we have a CO2 target not just guesswork.

I think it is silly to even discuss "how far back" while we are careening madly out of control forward.

I know it is absurd not to have a target CO2 level. Plants have to have it. It is their only source of carbon.

It is also mad to fail to promote the only proven method of CO2 reduction because a few tens of thousands will be at risk when you know for a fact hundreds of millions will die.

Dustbowl was a symptom of commercial farming, somewhat controlled now through mining to depletion of fertilizers, and crop rotation.

Farming is more commercial today. What does mining have to do with it? It was caused by a drought plain and simple.

Global warming increases strength and frequency of tornados, hurricanes,

Why hasn't it happened?

coral bleeching, loss of ice shelves, loss of ancient ice packs, loss of glaciers, loss of carbon sink, (thereby "naturally" enhancing the man-made effect).

1) only that coral thing has happened.
2) an active volcano was found under the Ross Ice Shelf and most of it is still there
3) Why do you think such changes are globally negative?

Plenty of scientific study is available to anyone actually looking for valid scientific information. NOAA and NASA are two readily available, deeper study can be found on sites that you would quickly dismiss. Only the conservative pundits and religious zealots continue to deny the scenarios... oh yes, and the gullible they prey upon.

Perhaps you would tell me which papers you have read which convinced you. You mean you have read none? You mean you do not have the scientific credentials to understand them? Then would it not honest to give proper scientific attribution to the opinions you are expressing? If you do not understand the science then you do not have an opinion. You are repeating the opinion of others whom it appears are not scientists either.

Being a physicist by education and having had a career in R&D I not only do read such material, unlike almost all melters I can actually understand them. Being able to understand them makes all the difference in the world. I have yet to read a melter express the issues in a manner that indicates understanding.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

[...
Yet another example:

Giant crabs make Antarctic leap

The BBC is not a scientific course.

How about sources from Arxiv or Nature or Science?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

...

Dustbowl was a symptom of commercial farming, somewhat controlled now through mining to depletion of fertilizers, and crop rotation.

Farming is more commercial today. What does mining have to do with it? It was caused by a drought plain and simple. ...

No it wasn't, all very simple.

Matt, can you simply not usefully discuss anything without randomly jumping one one unconnected glib random comment? Sorry, but that makes useful discussion impossible. It does make for a very easy flame-fest instead... Or is that the deliberate intention?


For example, for your dustbowl comment: The dustbowl was a disaster waiting to happen in that inappropriate farming practices on a large scale left the area vulnerable to a drought. Sure enough, when the weather shifted slightly, the farming practices had left the topsoil to turn to dry dust which then blew away...


Cause and effect and what they affect. They are very different aspects of what happens. (Special note for the "e" and the "a", they are different words with different meaning.)


The American dustbowl is a good example of how industrial scale practices and even just a small shift in weather patterns can wreak disaster. Hence the great concern and all the dire warnings about what we are changing on an ever increasingly vast industrial scale, worldwide...

Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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The warmest September 29th in 100 years, if this is the best global warming has
to offer the UK then what's all the fuss about? Now the fifth mediocre summer on the trot too so I wounder if this global warming is becoming selective. If there has been global warming then I think it must have hit or is hitting it's peak now. So as it rolls over the peak so you see less effects coming from it as you would when the warming phase was on a steep rise up the hill to this peak. It's over or nearly over now so no need to panic anymore and we will soon be speeding down the slipper slope of global cooling...now this next phase is going to be real fun?

"It's over or nearly over now so no need to panic anymore and we will soon be speeding down the slipper slope of global cooling...now this next phase is going to be real fun?"

Wow.. just... wow.

Always interesting seeing how people form opinion from fantasy.

---

Janice

"It's over or nearly over now so no need to panic anymore and we will soon be speeding down the slipper slope of global cooling...now this next phase is going to be real fun?"

Wow.. just... wow.

Always interesting seeing how people form opinion from fantasy.

Oh Soft^spirit, I am a realist and I know what is around the corner, so just be patient for it is coming. I'm not overly concerned about this global warming phase we're in but more concerned about the cold phase to come. And why, because the cooling phases have always caused greater distress to those living in the areas most effected by it. Currently, my garden plants, trees etc, are thriving on this increase in Co2, this is evidence of mother nature at work. Yes, doing what she always does when the Co2 level rises, absorbs it through the plants etc. But she has seen levels of Co2 well in excess of this we experience today. I promise you Soft^spirit, this planet of ours is still going to be supporting humans for many thousands of years to come. God has she seen worse done to this planet than man has ever managed to do so far. The biggest threat to man by the end of this century will not come via global temperature changes. No, it is going to come from advanced technology that will make both man and woman redundant as workers. Quantum computer controlled robotics will remove the need for man to carryout anything requiring manual operation. Be it driving a bus, servicing your car, serving behind a shop counter, farming anything involving a human manual input. Man is going to have a lot of spare time on his hands naturally population decrease on a large scale will be evident in virtually all
advanced countries by the middle of the next century. Strange as it is, population decrease is already happening in Japan now but not though due to advances in technology. I wounder if they realise, population wise, that there heading in the right direction?....Chin-up girl, everything's going to turn out just fine in the end.

Do you write Sci-fi?

---

Janice

The biggest threat to man by the end of this century will not come via global temperature changes. No, it is going to come from advanced technology that will make both man and woman redundant as workers.

Global warming or advanced technolgy? There are plenty men an women being made redundant right now, no need to wait until the end of the century.

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flaming balloons

...

Dustbowl was a symptom of commercial farming, somewhat controlled now through mining to depletion of fertilizers, and crop rotation.

Farming is more commercial today. What does mining have to do with it? It was caused by a drought plain and simple. ...

No it wasn't, all very simple.

Why address only one?

Matt, can you simply not usefully discuss anything without randomly jumping one one unconnected glib random comment? Sorry, but that makes useful discussion impossible. It does make for a very easy flame-fest instead... Or is that the deliberate intention?

Fine with me. Show that COOLER weather caused the dust bowl.

Useful discussion is of scientific matters. It does not consist of citing journalism majors as the melters do.

For example, for your dustbowl comment: The dustbowl was a disaster waiting to happen in that inappropriate farming practices on a large scale left the area vulnerable to a drought. Sure enough, when the weather shifted slightly, the farming practices had left the topsoil to turn to dry dust which then blew away...


Cause and effect and what they affect. They are very different aspects of what happens. (Special note for the "e" and the "a", they are different words with different meaning.)


The American dustbowl is a good example of how industrial scale practices and even just a small shift in weather patterns can wreak disaster. Hence the great concern and all the dire warnings about what we are changing on an ever increasingly vast industrial scale, worldwide...

Keep searchin',
Martin

Farming today is much MORE industrial than it was in the 1930s. How does it appear credible to you to repeat the industrial nonsense that is contradicted by fact?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

"It's over or nearly over now so no need to panic anymore and we will soon be speeding down the slipper slope of global cooling...now this next phase is going to be real fun?"

Wow.. just... wow.

Always interesting seeing how people form opinion from fantasy.

Got any scientific source to cite yet? Arxiv is on the web. Very free and no excuse or you not to read.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Do you write Sci-fi?

What is the correct percentage of CO2 to produce the global optimum climate?

Please use numbers in your response.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Do you write Sci-fi?

What is the correct percentage of CO2 to produce the global optimum climate?

Please use numbers in your response.

Matt, they don't know!, So how the hell can they say that the levels today are
bad for the Earths climate etc?...Ah, the ice caps are melting and the ice fields melting too, this must be bad. May be so if this was the first time this planet ever saw this melting event occur. But it is not, unfortunately during the last global warming phase, medieval period, no one was able to monitor the ice caps for evidence of melting. What is also difficult is the ability to accurately assess the rise in global temperatures during the last warming phase. But figures publish range between 0.3 degs lower than experienced today up to as much as 1 degree higher than todays. Now I favour the medieval warming phase temperature rise to be higher than we are experiencing today. I say this because there is ample church evidence that during this medieval period they were experiencing bumper harvests year upon year which is a good sign of a warm stable climate something very rare in the UK to date. After this medieval warming period(phase) came the cooling phase known as the mini-ice age. Here it is still quite uncertain when this cooling period ended. Some say around 1600ad, some say by the mid 1700's other set it at around the early 1800's. Well, the Thames frost fares peaked in 1688-89 with the severest frost ever reported for London. Within a very few years accurate temperature and weather monitoring was being carried out in London that is able to substantiate this fact. But during this severe frost in 1688 the river Thames froze over to a depth of 18 inches for nearly two months, Could that year have marked the end of this mini ice age cooling phase. If so and since the warming and then cooling phases tend to last for 300 years or there abouts it could be construed that the coming warming phase lasting again for around 300 years would be peaking around 1988. The date 1988 is rather hit or miss in accuracy terms since another severe frost hit London again in 1788. Again the Thames froze over to quite a depth, but it does seem that this marked the end of reports regarding any further severe frosts happening in London again. The Thames would freeze over on a regular basis during the 1600 to 1700's but accounts of this freezing reduced come the latter 1700's with the last occasion occurring in 1814. So when did this last cooling phase end, possibly sometime between the two reported severe frost of 1688/1788 so lets assume it to be around 1738 although I suspect earlier purely because the frost of 1688 was worse than that in 1788. Projecting forwards now to this current warming phase and we assume it will against last for about 300 years puts it ending at around 2038 but possibly much sooner. It looks to me that if this warming phase was to last until around 2038, and I don't think it will, fossil fuel burning, to a very large extent, will have been in decline by then.
Whether man has managed to have an influence on this current warming phase is pretty immaterial because if he has no one can possible calculate to what degree. If man were to be having an influence on our climate then this influence is coming to a peak and most probably have reached it's peak by the early 2020's being possibly the same time this current global warming phase tops out too.

... Whether man has managed to have an influence on this current warming phase is pretty immaterial because if he has no one can possible calculate to what degree. If man were to be having an influence on our climate then this influence is coming to a peak and most probably have reached it's peak by the early 2020's being possibly the same time this current global warming phase tops out too.

Man's influence on the atmosphere and climate are being very finely measured. We know to very good accuracy by how much we are polluting the atmosphere with CO2 emissions. With our industry and farming, we are by far the greatest source of CO2 all being spewed into the atmosphere. The increase in CO2 concentration is directly measured daily.

We are not going to be asphyxiated by the extra CO2, but we are measurably cooking our planet, and all faster than this world has ever seen before.

The rapid CO2 increase isn't natural.

Changes are being wrought, on a world-wide scale, very quickly... There are consequences to doing that.

This is our only world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
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...We are not going to be asphyxiated by the extra CO2, but we are measurably cooking our planet, and all faster than this world has ever seen before.

The rapid CO2 increase isn't natural.

Changes are being wrought, on a world-wide scale, very quickly... There are consequences to doing that.

One big and long time consequence is that our excess CO2 dumped into our atmosphere is set to stay there for well over a century, and we are adding yet more to that total!


This is our only world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Man's influence on the atmosphere and climate are being very finely measured. We know to very good accuracy by how much we are polluting the atmosphere with CO2 emissions.

Not quite true, Martin!

We know, with fine accuracy, how much CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere due to all causes including man.

Did anybody do an accurate atmosphere monitoring of the increase of CO2 due to the Mount St Helen's eruption in 1986 (a before the event and after the event)?

I am sure the answer is no!

Also there are over 1,500 active volcanoes in the world, mainly associated with the Pacific Fire Chain.

It seems the main eruption out-gassing, and non-eruption out-gassing from these volcanoes is estimated to be mainly in SO2 aerosols. These contribute to global cooling.

Interestingly, estimates of volcanic production of CO2, during out-gassing, is thought to be no more than between 1% and 10% of mans efforts.

The point I am making here is there are other sources of CO2 which should be taken account of as well as man. But, as a bolster to your case, the current state of art on volcanic CO2 emissions is low compared to mans.

---

It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

Man's influence on the atmosphere and climate are being very finely measured. We know to very good accuracy by how much we are polluting the atmosphere with CO2 emissions.

Not quite true, Martin!

We know, with fine accuracy, how much CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere due to all causes including man.

Did anybody do an accurate atmosphere monitoring of the increase of CO2 due to the Mount St Helen's eruption in 1986 (a before the event and after the event)?

I am sure the answer is no!

The CO2 concentration has been very finely measured on a daily basis since the 1960s at Hawaii. More recently, at various other stations around the world. We now have satellites that monitor CO2 concentration worldwide and can map where CO2 concentrations fluctuate and by how much.

Try a search, see if you can find volcanic emissions effects reported in the data. (Check also the credentials of whichever site you look at, there is an awful lot of FUD spewed out also.)

Also there are over 1,500 active volcanoes in the world, mainly associated with the Pacific Fire Chain.

It seems the main eruption out-gassing, and non-eruption out-gassing from these volcanoes is estimated to be mainly in SO2 aerosols. These contribute to global cooling.

Interestingly, estimates of volcanic production of CO2, during out-gassing, is thought to be no more than between 1% and 10% of mans efforts.

The point I am making here is there are other sources of CO2 which should be taken account of as well as man. But, as a bolster to your case, the current state of art on volcanic CO2 emissions is low compared to mans.

An important point is that the natural CO2 source -> sink cycle has been in balance for many thousands of years, until about 200 years ago when we got some very new feedback effects with humans gaining better health care, mechanised industry, mechanised farming, and a population explosion.

The population explosion continues... Until...

This is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

An interesting mix of effects:


Tuvalu declares emergency over water shortage

The tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency because of a severe shortage of fresh water. ...

... Mr Pefe said it had not rained properly in Tuvalu for more than six months and meteorologists were forecasting the lack of rain would continue until December.

Tuvalu normally expects to get 200 mm to 400 mm of rainfall per month.

Experts blame the drought on the La Nina weather phenomena. ...


Low-lying Pacific islands 'growing not sinking'

... In recent times, the inhabitants of many low-lying Pacific islands have come to fear their homelands being wiped off the map because of rising sea levels.

But this study of 27 islands over the last 60 years suggests that most have remained stable, while some have actually grown.

Using historical photographs and satellite imaging, the geologists found that 80% of the islands had either remained the same or got larger - in some cases, dramatically so.

They say it is due to the build-up of coral debris and sediment, and to land reclamation. ...

... "We have now got the evidence to suggest that the physical foundation of these countries will still be there in 100 years, so they perhaps do not need to flee their country."

But although these islands might not be submerged under the waves in the short-term, it does not mean they will be inhabitable in the long-term, and the scientists believe further rises in sea levels pose a significant danger to the livelihoods of people living in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia.

One scientist in Kiribati said that people should not be lulled into thinking that inundation and coastal erosion were not a major threat.


So, even if the rising seas might not kill off the land area, a change in climate easily could...


This is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

An apt quote from an author from quite a few years ago now:


Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a
generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the
pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of
annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder
year than I've ever known." Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom
alerted to the shifting average through a great span of years. And it is
precisely in this alerting that humans learn how to survive on any planet.
They must learn climate.

-- Arrakis, the Transformation, After Harq al-Ada


For that example, the climate was transformed overnight. Many people died in the surrounding events...

That is just a story, but there are parallels...


And this is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)