What Climate change?

[pjclarke]

Well you cant really know. Heck we cant even measure it that well today.

what we DO know. is that water freezes at roughly zero and that certain crops will only grow where its warm.

So, if the Romans tell us it never froze in the winter and that grapes were grown in abundance in the North east of England, that tells us a little bit of useful info.

English Wine Producers :: Scotland

[EternalOptimist]

luckily, we have written accounts of historical warm blips. So even if there were no accurate temperature readings, we know there were 'blips'
Like the Romans making wine in Brittania and the Vikings finding Greenland to be green. as opposed to being covered in a hundred feet of ice.

On the other side of the warm blips we know about the summer ice fairs.

The picture is clear warm, cold, warm, cold, warm , cold ........

It's called a cycle.

In the 1980's, the environmentalists warned that we were heading for an ice age, due to CO2

Now we are on the upward swing of the cycle so they have changed their tune. and they will change it again, when it suits them.

they do not understand cycles

[pjclarke]

In the 1980's, the environmentalists warned that we were heading for an ice age, due to CO2

Another myth, there were a few Pop Sci books and media pieces about what would happen if the cooling trend, more to do with aerosols than CO2, continued but the literature was dominated by anthropogenic warming from the seventies onwards ...

Link to actual science

[EternalOptimist]

UC Davis ecology professor Kenneth Watt: “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”


It is not a good idea to look at trends and extrapolate.
It is better to try to use science to understand what is going on, and to be able to say
'we just don't know'

[pjclarke]

Could you share the source of the one-line quote, pls? I'd like to see the context. And I thought Watt was a zoologist

[EternalOptimist]

of course, the doomsters of the 70's and early 80's
didn't just have a REASON for the upcoming ice age (particulates and CO2)

they had the EVIDENCE. falling temperatures.


except now the temps are not falling, so its no ice age, but thermaggeddon.
caused by ????


yep, you guessed it

[EternalOptimist]

Could you share the source of the one-line quote, pls? I'd like to see the context. And I thought Watt was a zoologist

there is no point. you do not understand cycles.

I will not try to explain natural cycles to you and by the same token, I will not try to explain Heisenbergs Uncertainty principle to my cat.

[pjclarke]

there is no point. you do not understand cycles.

That's a no, then. But it is OK, I can guess, it appears in several aggregations of 'failed predictions' from those wacky Greens, example.

The technique is simple, predictions and projections are made all the time, in the literature, in the media, in opinion columns, by bona fide scientists, by commentators, by nutters. Many are conditional, saying IF this THEN that. If your intention is to discredit, all you have to do is quote a selection of those predictions that did not come to pass, and remove or downplay the conditions, to make the predictor appear alarmist.

So, for example, in 2007 there was a huge drop in arctic ice, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally observed that "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions"

Fortunately, 2007 proved to be an outlier and the ice loss rate reverted to the long term trend rate. Unfortunately for Zwally, his quote, with his qualification carefully excised, was widely used to discredit him, and by extension climate science as a whole. One denier website even had a countdown clock to the predicted date, such are the tactics you have to resort to, when you have no actual science.

So, yeah, just collect together a number of these failed predictions, consisting largely of one-line quotes, shorn of all context and you can paint a thoroughly misleading picture for the gullible, you can claim that 'In the 1980's, the environmentalists warned that we were heading for an ice age' based on nothing more than a single sentence (actually from 1970, btw), when a peer-reviewed literature review shows this to be utter nonsense.

And you can do this while calling yourself a 'sceptic'.

[DimPrawn]

That's a no, then. But it is OK, I can guess, it appears in several aggregations of 'failed predictions' from those wacky Greens, example.

The technique is simple, predictions and projections are made all the time, in the literature, in the media, in opinion columns, by bona fide scientists, by commentators, by nutters. Many are conditional, saying IF this THEN that. If your intention is to discredit, all you have to do is quote a selection of those predictions that did not come to pass, and remove or downplay the conditions, to make the predictor appear alarmist.

So, for example, in 2007 there was a huge drop in arctic ice, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally observed that "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions"

Fortunately, 2007 proved to be an outlier and the ice loss rate reverted to the long term trend rate. Unfortunately for Zwally, his quote, with his qualification carefully excised, was widely used to discredit him, and by extension climate science as a whole. One denier website even had a countdown clock to the predicted date, such are the tactics you have to resort to, when you have no actual science.

So, yeah, just collect together a number of these failed predictions, consisting largely of one-line quotes, shorn of all context and you can paint a thoroughly misleading picture for the gullible, you can claim that 'In the 1980's, the environmentalists warned that we were heading for an ice age' based on nothing more than a single sentence (actually from 1970, btw), when a peer-reviewed literature review shows this to be utter nonsense.

And you can do this while calling yourself a 'sceptic'.

So shall I buy some shorts or a coat? Which is the better long term investment given everything is subject to "climate change"?

[pjclarke]

So shall I buy some shorts or a coat? Which is the better long term investment given everything is subject to "climate change"?

Well, its your call, me I don't see much evidence of 'cycles'...