Global cooling

[GURGLETROUSERS]

Nice find Steven. I rolled about the floor and laughed so much that I kicked up a dust storm, and can't stop sneezing!

The Farmers Almanac people (sons of the earth, and all that) with their planets, sun-spots, lunar cycles, and and study of farting Unicorn droppings must clearly be funded by those fiendish Russian scientists, who must be smirking and choking on their vodka shots at the imminent end of Western dominance (the mini-ice age) dawns, and the great mass of those know-it-all consensus big heads poop their pants in embarrassed confusion.

Hard to keep a straight face!!

[GURGLETROUSERS]

Just to explain the merriment.

Our Met Office 'super' computer, the one which insists on putting figures on future warming) also predicted an especially dry winter, only to see us under water in the wettest one for over 200 years. (Water table now choc-a-block full, and unable to take any more.)

Living in a rural farming community, and knowing enough of them to picture the tea-time scene with wives permanently 'ear plugged' at the deluge of a ranting farmer at the 'inside (exp-deleted) office working (exp-del) computer (exp-del) half-wits, who wouldn't know a heifer from a (exp-del) hippopotamous,' I can't help falling about!

It is apparent to many of us sceptics,that living our lives in touch with nature, and with some being able to read the signs and complex nuances, that such subtleties are entirely absent from theoretical computer model programs.

Weather is always stated by climatologists to RANDOM in nature, yet they claim that CLIMATE is not. If you put a thousand bits of information into a super computer, and just one nuance or fact is wrong, or missing, the more in error that future forecast will be. (The further ahead, the more so.)

No greater demonstration of that could have been presented than for this winter. Not just mistaken (both sides of the pond), but totally and laughably way out of court!

[pueno]

[isobars]

[uwindsurf]

“In a sense, climate change can now be considered the world’s largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even, the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,” Kerry told Indonesian students, civic leaders and government officials.

[GURGLETROUSERS]

I kow Pueno, but I feel full of beans, and can't contain myself! I put it down to thoise Neandethal genes - and my sinus pains.

But if you knew some of our Yorkshire eccentrics - one 'farmer Giles' type has a row of old lavatory bowls with propped up lids all along one side of his farm house. They're full of soil, and he grows magnificent flowers in them.

I can well imagine how he keeps them fertilized!!

[pueno]

[mac]

For those willing to open their eyes and look at something besides the elephant’s tail, I’ll throw some actual information out. My starting point is “Safeguarding California: Reducing Climate Risk”, a December 2013 draft.

Let’s look at ocean acidification. Just to make it personal consider the story of Mark Wiegardt, who runs the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery near Tillamook Oregon. He’s learned that the increased acidification due to the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide killed his young oysters. How could that be? Just a few sources—science, you know—on acidification, copied from the report I cited:

Billé R., Kelly R., Biastoch A., Harrould-Kolieb E., Herr D., Joos F., Kroeker K., Laffoley D., Oschlies A., and Gattuso J-P. 2013. Taking Action Against Ocean Acidification: A Review of Management and Policy Options. Environmental Management, Vol 52, Issue 4, pp 761-779 384
William G. Sunda and Wei-Jun Cai. Eutrophication Induced CO2-Acidification of Subsurface Coastal Waters: Interactive Effects of Temperature, Salinity, and Atmospheric PCO2. Environmental Science & Technology 2012 46
(19), 10651-10659 385
R. Feely et al., Evidence for Upwelling of Corrosive “Acidified” Water onto the Continental Shelf, 320 Science 1490 (2008). 386
Why Ocean Acidification Matters to California, and What California Can Do About it: A report on the power of California’s State Government to Address Ocean Acidification, Center of Ocean Solutions (March 2012), p. 9. 387 http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/2/024007/fulltext/ 388
Ocean Acidification in the California Current: Predicting Impacts on Food Webs and Economies within a Context of Climate Change: http://www.coastalscience.noaa.gov/projects/detail?key=126 389
Barton, Alan, Hales, Burke, Waldbusser, George G., Langdon, Chris and Feely, Richard A., The Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas, shows negative correlation to naturally elevated carbon dioxide levels: Implications for near- term ocean acidification effects, 2012. http://www.aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_57/issue_3/0698.html

Let’s open our eyes, let go of the tail, and consider sea level rise.

Sea-Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington: Past, Present, and Future, National Research Council (NRC), 2012. Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program, OPC, and the
California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) funded a 2009 study on sea level rise by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of California San Diego, the California Department of Boating
and Waterways, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Hydrologic Research Center. The 2009 study projected California sea levels would rise approximately 16 inches by 2050 and 55 inches by 2100.

The Impacts of Sea Level Rise on the California Coast, Paper from the California Climate Center, Prepared by: Matthew Heberger, Heather Cooley, Pablo Herrera, Peter H. Gleick, and Eli Moore of the Pacific Institute, August
2009, pp. 2-3. California Energy Commission. Publication number: CEC-500-2009-024-F http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-500-2009-024/CEC-500-2009-024-F.PDF

FLOODING

Why should we worry about sea level rise? Does 14 inches really matter when we get much bigger storm surges like those in Great Britain? Well, yes. Flood control systems in developed areas on the Coasts of the United States—where half of the people live within 50 miles of the coast—were constructed without consideration of sea level rise, and often without consideration of storm surges, or sediment delivery. At present, the Federal government insures most mortgages, and requires consideration of flood risk, and purchase of flood insurance. I know there are conservatives who don’t like the Federal government’s involvement in the mortgage and insurance aspects of home ownership. But there are no serious proposals to change this, and the barriers to change with so many benefiting are immense. (The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Act was signed into law in JULY 2012, but doesn’t solve many of the problems. Currently the program collects about $3 billion a year, but pays out, on average, about three times that.)

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma showed the risk of increased storm intensity—claims in 2005 were $17.7 billion. Sandy’s costs are much larger than what would be covered by the flood insurance program—but the hit to that program is expected to be over $12 billion. It is obvious to any hydraulic engineer that an increase in sea level of 14 inches—pretty much the lowest current projection—would render flood control systems ineffective for most of the United States coastline.

STORM INTENSITY

The current breast beating about California’s drought, England’s surges, and the Midwest winter are much ado about nothing--despite NW's uninformed crowing. While climate models project greater intensity of storms, there is no way to predict where those storms would hit. But the inquiry does not stop there—if one is willing to open one’s eyes. The physics of the relationship between temperature and moisture in the atmosphere is well understood. The recent increase in research on large-scale phenomena like El Nino conditions, driven by ocean temperatures, have taught us a great deal. A simple quote from the report:

“For every 1-degree C (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature, the amount of moisture that the atmosphere can contain rises by 7 percent; the increased moisture in the atmosphere means more rain, and climate models predict there will be more extreme rain events.”

Some will insist that they are better off keeping their eyes closed, and holding tight to the elephant’s tail. It never ceases to amaze me how many unwinnable wars the GOP wants to wage. A war against women, a war against allowing the increasing number of minorities to vote, a war against the poor, and now a war against science. It reminds me of the Catholic Church, who burned Giordano Bruno at the stake on February 16, 1600 for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun. It took the Church until 1992 to relent on Galileo; they haven’t apologized for Bruno. It goes to show you that religious conservatives can ignore reality—and hold a grudge—for centuries.

[nw30]

What, no increased earthquakes or volcanos? They must be hedging.

[GURGLETROUSERS]

Of course survival of the human race is a serious issue Mac, and I can see that in many ways (political, religious, huge expense) America faces bigger problems than us. But some of us don't accept the 'gloom and doom' scenario, especially after surviving on the front line (bombing blitzes, and escaped by a whisker total invasion) the last world war. It kind of puts things in perspective.

Even IF the computer models of rising sea levels, and hotter temperatures were to be correct, the human race isn't going to end. The present apocalyptic mentality is on a par with the Aides epidemic panic (most of the world will catch it), and the CJD mad cow panic (millions of people will develop holes in their brains and all go mad). Things rarely turn out that way.

What I'm suggesting is that, it isn't the threat of climate change itself which will be the real problem, but our REACTION to that change. i.e. Our overpopulation of the worlds living spaces, and our aggressive human nature, and will to fight for what we want (living room) backed by technological weaponry.

And that's before we bring religious fanaticism and fervour into the volatile mix!