Greenland - behind the headlines
Discussion
Yesterday's front page of The Independent carried one of its trademark global warming stories, from a scientist Bush tried to gag, apparently. Not sure about that but with The Indy on the case Bush has no chance 
There was something less hysterical in an article on an inside page of the Mail.
Basically the storyline ran that Greenland is warmer now than five years ago, that the rate of change 'is much greater than scientists thought', we're all about to drown, and that supporting Tiny BLiair's nuclear power programme - which really really is much less scary than global warming honest mate I tell you it's true - is the only way to save the planet. OK, I made up that last bit but you get the idea.
As you would expect this isn't quite what it seems. The chart below was originally from NASA/GISS data and is adapted from an existing debunk on junksciencedotcom. It shows accurate temperature readings from Greenland for more than 100 years, and I've superimposed the ambient carbon dioxide level for most of the same period.
It's easy to see that most of the recent warming there took place before 1940, when emissions and levels of carbon dioxide were much lower. Since then there has been cooling and a bit more warming recently, but with no clear overall trend for the last 60 years, and no correlation with carbon dioxide levels.
The region is known for its rapid temperature swings, as much as 7 deg C in about 50 years has been seen in ice core data. To take a small region of the current portion of such a chart and use the gradient as a scare story is just the worst kind of junk science that the global warming industry can produce. Yes it's warmer now than five years ago but it was even warmer in the 1930's. Yes there is a up blip just now but there have been simlar rates of change before. Here's the chart.
With Nu Labia On Air about to launch a climate change chaos series we can expect more of this from tone and the true believers.
>> Edited by turbobloke on Monday 20th February 23:37
There was something less hysterical in an article on an inside page of the Mail.
Basically the storyline ran that Greenland is warmer now than five years ago, that the rate of change 'is much greater than scientists thought', we're all about to drown, and that supporting Tiny BLiair's nuclear power programme - which really really is much less scary than global warming honest mate I tell you it's true - is the only way to save the planet. OK, I made up that last bit but you get the idea.
As you would expect this isn't quite what it seems. The chart below was originally from NASA/GISS data and is adapted from an existing debunk on junksciencedotcom. It shows accurate temperature readings from Greenland for more than 100 years, and I've superimposed the ambient carbon dioxide level for most of the same period.
It's easy to see that most of the recent warming there took place before 1940, when emissions and levels of carbon dioxide were much lower. Since then there has been cooling and a bit more warming recently, but with no clear overall trend for the last 60 years, and no correlation with carbon dioxide levels.
The region is known for its rapid temperature swings, as much as 7 deg C in about 50 years has been seen in ice core data. To take a small region of the current portion of such a chart and use the gradient as a scare story is just the worst kind of junk science that the global warming industry can produce. Yes it's warmer now than five years ago but it was even warmer in the 1930's. Yes there is a up blip just now but there have been simlar rates of change before. Here's the chart.
With Nu Labia On Air about to launch a climate change chaos series we can expect more of this from tone and the true believers.
>> Edited by turbobloke on Monday 20th February 23:37
bad_roo said:
So basically the graph shows that temperatures have gone up by four degrees since the Industrial Revolution.
That doesn't concern you at all?
No, not at all, because there is no correlation between the temperature rise of 4 deg C over ~ 150 years and the carbon dioxide emissions and levels during that time, and prior to the industrial revolution there have been temperatrue changes twice as big in half the timescale.
The question ought to be, why does such a small rise in such a long timescale, with no link to CO2, concern anyone?
Very interesting. I've long been uncomfortable with the Global Warning debate. Its almost a heresy to question the accepted wisdom of "man made climate change".
I had an interesting discussion with someone in the pub on this very subject last week. Essentially his arguement quickly degenerated into "global warming is a reality cos everyone knows it is "
I tried to question the science - you know, all the stuff about man made vs natural Co2 emmissions, water vapour, natural temperature change cycles etc. He wouldn't have any of it.
I suppose I didn't help matters by asking why, if the green lobby was so wise, it had lobbied so hard for catalytic converters on cars - effectively making avery car a CO2 producer, not to mention 15% less efficient to boot! He mentioned something about the need for unleaded petrol - to which I pointed out that my TVR runs unleaded and does not have a Catalyst. That REALLY flummoxed him!
Andy
>> Edited by andymadmak on Saturday 18th February 12:02
>> Edited by andymadmak on Saturday 18th February 12:02
I had an interesting discussion with someone in the pub on this very subject last week. Essentially his arguement quickly degenerated into "global warming is a reality cos everyone knows it is "
I tried to question the science - you know, all the stuff about man made vs natural Co2 emmissions, water vapour, natural temperature change cycles etc. He wouldn't have any of it.
I suppose I didn't help matters by asking why, if the green lobby was so wise, it had lobbied so hard for catalytic converters on cars - effectively making avery car a CO2 producer, not to mention 15% less efficient to boot! He mentioned something about the need for unleaded petrol - to which I pointed out that my TVR runs unleaded and does not have a Catalyst. That REALLY flummoxed him!
Andy
>> Edited by andymadmak on Saturday 18th February 12:02
>> Edited by andymadmak on Saturday 18th February 12:02
The media give half a story, it's not surprising Joe Public is taken in as the tide of information pollution is unrelenting.
Edges of the Greenland icy bits - if they thicken and grow out over the water - will warm, break away and float off. Is this a bad sign or a good one? The interior shows no sign of meltdown...
At the other pole, the antarctic ice cap is thickening at a rate of 27 billion tonnes per year according to researchers Joughin and Tulaczyk. Not enough to chill out the man-made global warming true believers, of course, but to them warming is cooling and cooling is warming, all things lead to carbon dioxide, and there are fairies at the bottom of every garden.
Edges of the Greenland icy bits - if they thicken and grow out over the water - will warm, break away and float off. Is this a bad sign or a good one? The interior shows no sign of meltdown...
An objective research report in 2005 said:
Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland
(Ola M. Johannessen, Kirill Khvorostovsky 2, Martin W. Miles, Leonid P. Bobylev, Science, October 2005)
Greenland's ice cap has thickened slightly in recent years despite wide predictions of a thaw triggered by global warming. Recent growth in the interior regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet is reported by a Norwegian-led team of climate scientists. The growth is estimated to be about 6 cm per year during the study period, 1992-2003. They derive and analyse the longest continuous dataset of satellite altimeter observations of Greenland Ice Sheet elevations by combining tens of millions of data points from European Space Agency (ESA) satellites, called ERS-1 and ERS-2, and NASA. This allowed the scientists to determine the spatial patterns of surface elevation variations and changes over an 11-year period between 1992 and 2003. The continuous data set of Greenland Ice Sheet altimeter height from ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites, 1992 to 2003, shows an increase of 6.4 +/- 0.2 centimeters per year in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters, in contrast to previous reports
At the other pole, the antarctic ice cap is thickening at a rate of 27 billion tonnes per year according to researchers Joughin and Tulaczyk. Not enough to chill out the man-made global warming true believers, of course, but to them warming is cooling and cooling is warming, all things lead to carbon dioxide, and there are fairies at the bottom of every garden.
polus said:
Its does go against scientific methodology to conclude so much from such a small set of results (considering that ~120 years in the perspective to the earth existence is all but a snap shot).
We need data stretching back as far as data can be interpreted with reasonable accuracy. Global warming theory still seems to be an open book. Thank god I didn’t buy beachfront property though! (in the unlikely event they are right).speedy_thrills said:
Global warming theory still seems to be an open book. Thank god I didn’t buy beachfront property though!
OK you didn't buy beachfront property - but did you buy thermals or shares in woolly undies companies, for laydees in the next 50 years long johns could well replace the little black dress
Dr Absudamatov yes he's Russian and an expert from the Russian Sciences Academy Observatory who said:
A process of sustained global cooling is about to start on the Earth and by the middle of the 21st century the planet will be captured by low temperatures. We have already witnessed cooling of this kind in Europe, North America and Greenland between 1645-1705, with canals freezing in Holland, and people abandoning settlements because of glaciers in Greenland. This is what we are expecting again. Observations of the Sun's fluctuations, past and present, that influence the climate on Earth show that we have reached the peak of the current phase of natural global warming. Now, with the decrease in the Sun's activity and eruptivity, global temperatures are going to decrease.
In the 20th century, the Sun's activity has been characterized by a general increase in activity and the amount of energy emitted, and global warming was a result of this process. Global warming is by no means an anomaly, but a normal phenomenon. Global warmings, as well as global coolings, have happened before. By 2035 the Sun's activity will have reached its minimum, with a deep cooling of the Earth's climate expected.
Oooh canvass passion killers, luvverly. This is, however, the objective scientific view of climate change and our imminent future. The Gleissberg cycle has been a reliable indicator, the Little Ice Age of 1640 - 1710 was due to a deep Gleissberg minimum like that due between 2030 and 2035. The signs are that we may still have some warm summers up to about 2012 but the frequency of severe winters may have started to increase already on the way to the cooldown. Strangely subdued solar fields have been observed already:
Dr K Schatten in Geophysical Research Letters Vo 32 2005 said:
Coronal features do not show the characteristics of well-formed polar coronal holes associated with typical solar minima, but rather resemble stunted polar field levels. The question is raised: why have the Sun's polar fields not strengthened comparably in the 2000–2005 time period, as in the previous few decades?
Brrrrrrrrr
turbobloke said:
The media give half a story, it's not surprising Joe Public is taken in as the tide of information pollution is unrelenting.
Indeed. I saw a horribly unbalanced report from the BBC the other day. Which, even in its unbalanced reporting, couldn't even tell their side of things convincingly.
The media salivate when they get hold of stuff like this. There's nothing they enjoy more than a spot of scaremongering. And yes, it's disgraceful.
>> Edited by _VTEC_ on Saturday 18th February 14:08
I am Joe public and as a teacher I was passing on the hearsay info about GW and wind turbines without ever looking at the scientific evidence. Seems to me it is about time for 'Horizon' to present the shocking revelation that the facts about man made global warming are down to misleading information and that there is another side to the story .........called the Scientific Truth......... I am thinking about to starting a new campaign SAVE OUR CO2........without it we would be in a mess............
orinoco said:Yes - as far as I'm aware, GCSE and A-level syllabus content for subjects like science and geography have man-made global warming as a fact, not a half-baked political theory to extract more and more tax and introduce totalitarian ideology by the back door.
I am Joe public and as a teacher I was passing on the hearsay info about GW and wind turbines without ever looking at the scientific evidence. Seems to me it is about time for 'Horizon' to present the shocking revelation that the facts about man made global warming are down to misleading information and that there is another side to the story .........called the Scientific Truth......... I am thinking about to starting a new campaign SAVE OUR CO2........without it we would be in a mess............
The day these charts are taught in schools will be a breakthrough for objectivity, but I think we'll freeze first (literally).
The perfect correlation between solar activity and temperature is below, from a peer-reviewed paper by Dr K Lassen, with the conclusion that there is no human signal in the climate data going back over 400 years. Look at the solar eruptivity trend in terms of the overall profile, and compare with the Greenland chart at the start of this thread - - carbon dioxide, no correlation but solar activity - bingo same profile:
It's The Sun Wot Dunnit.
Recent temperature trends in the lower atmosphere where, according to man-made global warming theory and its true believers, the enhanced greenhouse effect should be giving us rapid and continuous warming by now. This is a NASA chart:
This shows Gleissberg cycle maxima and minima over time. The Gleissberg cycle shows trends in intensity of the Hale cycle (sunspots). Note the Maunder Minimum coincident with the Little Ice Age (17th century), and the more recent Dalton dip. You may remember reading that the snowfalls in the USA are the worst since 1864. The summers around that time, particularly 1862, were unusually cold. The date of the last relatively deep Gleissberg minimum - that Dalton dip - was...no prizes
2200 looks interesting
once we've thawed out from the 2030 freeze due to the rather nice looking climate optimum scheduled inbetween 
The only way of getting a clue about future climate trends is to observe the Sun, and even that holds for a few millennia with fine detail for centuries and maybe decades. Longer timescales it's planetary tilt / wobbling and orbital eccentricity. Beyond that we needn't worry too much, except for the random climate shifters like volcanic eruptions, impacts from space, and nearby supernovae. The current focus on carbon dioxide is wrong-minded but convenient for those with another agenda.
Edited to add: no it doesn't mean we agree with George Dubya, politicians are the last people to listen to over anything remotely scientific. I'd recommend going to the evidence and making our own minds up, which is why I usually try to bring that scientific evidence here so that PHers can view it alongside the media headlines and make their own minds up.
>> Edited by turbobloke on Saturday 18th February 15:06
The BBC are having a propaganda week starting this monday on BBC4. Some of the 'factual' shows include:
'Meltdown: A Global Warming Journey - Paul Rose collates evidence from past and present to find out what's really going on with the polar regions and our climate, and what it means for the future.'
'Glacial Retreat - A skier reveals a glacier near her home which has sunk 15 metres in the last few decades, and is concerning the community.'
'Climate Conspiracy... - ... Or Global Catastrophe? Dr Iain Stewart investigates the truth behind the headlines about global warming. How much do scientists really know about the subject?'
I've seen the trailers for 'Meltdown', and it really did look like an enviro-mentalist soapbox. I sincerely hope that they try to balance the argument by having some real scientists give their views, and not just turn it into another tabloid-style scare story.
'Meltdown: A Global Warming Journey - Paul Rose collates evidence from past and present to find out what's really going on with the polar regions and our climate, and what it means for the future.'
'Glacial Retreat - A skier reveals a glacier near her home which has sunk 15 metres in the last few decades, and is concerning the community.'
'Climate Conspiracy... - ... Or Global Catastrophe? Dr Iain Stewart investigates the truth behind the headlines about global warming. How much do scientists really know about the subject?'
I've seen the trailers for 'Meltdown', and it really did look like an enviro-mentalist soapbox. I sincerely hope that they try to balance the argument by having some real scientists give their views, and not just turn it into another tabloid-style scare story.
thegreenhell said:
The BBC are having a propaganda week starting this monday on BBC4. Some of the 'factual' shows include:
'Meltdown: A Global Warming Journey - Paul Rose collates evidence from past and present to find out what's really going on with the polar regions and our climate, and what it means for the future.'
'Glacial Retreat - A skier reveals a glacier near her home which has sunk 15 metres in the last few decades, and is concerning the community.'
'Climate Conspiracy... - ... Or Global Catastrophe? Dr Iain Stewart investigates the truth behind the headlines about global warming. How much do scientists really know about the subject?'
I've seen the trailers for 'Meltdown', and it really did look like an enviro-mentalist soapbox. I sincerely hope that they try to balance the argument by having some real scientists give their views, and not just turn it into another tabloid-style scare story.
...and fitting in nicely with the government's agenda, one of which no doubt is that we will "...have to get real and pay more for our energy...".
Now wouldn't that be a surprise?
thegreenhell said:Yes it's an appalling prospect - I can't wait for the balanced coverage to enlighten us all
'Glacial Retreat - A skier reveals a glacier near her home which has sunk 15 metres in the last few decades, and is concerning the community.'
If I may focus on the one specific aspect of climate in those trailers, glaciers typically undergo a rapid advance lasting 5 to 7 years, then retreat slowly for the next 80 years up. So what this skier has seen is normal, if she's in a region with several glaciers there will be others that are advancing. We've been here before.
A few years back Greenpeace staged a glacier stunt on the arctic island of Svalbard. They pitched up and took photos of a glacier, Blomstrandbreen, that had retreated significantly since a photo they obtained taken in the late 1800s. The local Norwegian climate guru, Professor Ole Humlum, wondered why that one particular glacier was the focus of attention when dozens of glaciers were advancing — Friddjovbreen, for example, had advanced more than a mile in the last seven years, one of many to do likewise. Photographs of Svalbard glaciers such as Vonpostbreen and Esmarkbreen taken in the mid- to late 1990s show a very healthy picture. But Greenpeas took a photo of Blomstrandbreen because it fitted their agenda and helped create another stunning propaganda coup
Andy Mac said:Don't forget either that BLiar sees nuclear power as the solution to the domestic and industrial energy crisis, prices and all, but there are problems with his backbench troglodytes and the greens and public perceptions and ... so he's trying to make global warming look more and more scary through every 'bliarfriendly' outlet there is, and if he succeeds and Joe Public believes the non-fossil fuel nuclear option will save the planet he's home and dry. The Government Chief Scientist appears to be toeing the line nicely.
"...have to get real and pay more for our energy...".
Andy Mac said:
"...have to get real and pay more for our energy...".
Because heat, and power is a privilige, not a right!
But do we want to pay more just because we have been conned into doing so via government-inspired propoganda?
It's bad enough that prices are fixed (champagne / diamond trade-style) and that we have little choice because of privatized cartels.
The fact that the taxpayer has paid many time over for the infrastructure to be put in place makes the use of energy a right, hardly a privilege.
james_j said:
"...have to get real and pay more for our energy...".
Because heat, and power is a privilige, not a right!
But do we want to pay more just because we have been conned into doing so via government-inspired propoganda?
It's bad enough that prices are fixed (champagne / diamond trade-style) and that we have little choice because of privatized cartels.
The fact that the taxpayer has paid many time over for the infrastructure to be put in place makes the use of energy a right, hardly a privilege.
I agree with you james. labour should not be putting up the price, (hence the it's a privilige, not a right, followed by a rolleyes!). Energy should be cheap, because without it we would all pretty much suffer, and it should certainly not get to the point where the rich can use what they want, and the poor have to ration it! Nuclear is the way forward, (It's a taste sensation!), but some of the greenies get all uppity. You can't win. No more fossil fuels, so they build big wind turbines.. They in turn kill birds, and effect the ground as they dig them too deep... Tidal generators effect fishies, and spoil the lovely view, so Nuclear is the only option.. It's the cleanest, with fewest emissions. Greenies.. never bloody happy.
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