There are times you wonder why you bother.............

[pipesmokingman]

actually that model is a collectors item - ( if you are into historical mobility vehicles ) -  and if you want it to go faster - just have a play with the gearing

 

any ways - to the video - well it has validity , but what of the other threats ?? - Yellowstone caldera ?? - bolides from space ?? , actually watched a documentary last night ( interesting choice of programming for Xmas eve   ) call "super comet "  ( discovery channel ) and what one comet hitting the earth could do - interestingly there where a panel of "experts" - who basically where saying the same thing - we dont have the tech to stop a comet or deflect it at this time , and like GCC its a question of when not if - so for a threat that makes global warming look like a minor hickup - what are we doing about it ?? - seemingly not a lot at the mo ,  but are there hordes of activists on the streets ? nope , or world leaders meeting ?? - nope , so as usual i suppose its a perception of risk problem - or more specifically a SEP : , DOUGLAS ADAMS described these thus :

   An SEP is something we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody Else's problem.... The brain just edits it out, it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.

    The technology required to actually make something invisible is so complex and unreliable that it isn't worth the bother. The "Somebody Else's Problem field" is much simpler and more effective, and "can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery."

    This is because it relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.

and i guess GCC is regarded in the main as somebody else's problem - a bit like bolides from space - UNTILL  it either happens ( or not as the case may be )  then it becomes a question of WDSDSAIS - ( why didn't somebody do something about it sooner )

any ways place your bets folks ( choose your doomsday scenario )  - the odds ain't great - as eventually WE ALL SCREWED !!  

makes me wonder if all the turkeys you may or may not be enjoying today think the same way ?? - one to ponder if there's nowt on the telly tonight  

( which is an "odds on " certainty -)  

[AlanM]

Well that wasn't particularly illuminating, none of the links work, and the article dates from april 2007

"Our scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently sound to make us highly confident that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Science moves forward by challenge and debate and this will continue."

Only" highly confident", I take it then that it is therefore not proven, ergo, other hypotheses are not excluded. As they go on to say,"Science moves forward by challenge and debate and this will continue.", why then such vehemence and disdain, when the orthodox is questioned?

As a colleague of mine said this morning in his christmas card, "\just as well for global warming, it would be minus 10 here instead of minus 8"

Seasons greetings!

[martin]

"why then such vehemence and disdain" - maybe it's because it's a pretty unarguable and totally proven case, and is getting the "vehemence and disdain" normally reserved for other similar "flat earth" nonsenses 
Try the pdf I linked to if you're having problems with the links on the main site -
http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/News_and_Issues/Science_Issues/Climate_change/Climate_booklet_RS1420_reprint_Dec08.pdf

[frotter]

Havent any of us got anything better we could be doing on Christmas Day..?   Hmmm?

Stop fretting about the climate and go an see if you can get another mince pie down yer gran......

 

[pipesmokingman]

oooh naughty frotter - the health fascists will be after you - gotta watch ones cholesterol and BMI you know

long live death by cholesterol 

wanders off to see what c*** is on the telly  -= and i suppose i had better wash the dishes as well

bah humbug 

[JMALW]

It seems I raised Martins blood pressure a bit and I'm sorry for that but I have to say everyone has an opinion and that's why I am taking steps towards adaptation since I know there is likely to be "trouble ahead" as the song goes. I want to learn all there is to know about survival and a return to basics. Not that I will refrain from modern day indulgances - in fact I will back the advance in technology and new materials since this is the only chance we have of combating any changes the climate throws at us - so carry on pushing forward at full steam. The proof of this hypothesy is in the last 100 years where we have done things that have changed our whole way of life for the better in general for all levels of society, but that was before Gordon's intrusion.

[AdeV]

"why then such vehemence and disdain" - maybe it's because it's a pretty unarguable and totally proven case, and is getting the "vehemence and disdain" normally reserved for other similar "flat earth" nonsenses 

There's no such thing as a "totally proven case" in science. They've not even proved gravity yet!

The only thing that global climate models prove is that, if you put the numbers into them that causes them to read higher global temperatures, they read higher global temperatures. That is all you can ever prove with a computer model.

PS frotter, it's now Boxing day. I hope I'm excused 

[EccentricAnomaly]

AlanM quoted Dr Chris Landsea:

Eight of these authorities agree that the globe is currently cooling. Only GISS disagrees.

Here "globe" should read "surface of the globe", they say nothing much about how heat is being stored below the surface, particularly in the oceans.

Imagine a standard hot water cylinder with a solar coil at the bottom.  You're measuring the temperature of the pipes to and from the panels.  Suppose that early in the morning the temperature of these pipes slowly rises as the sun gets on to the panels and the water around the coil warms.  Sometime during the morning the water at the bottom of the cylinder gets sufficiently warmer than the water above that convection kicks in.  The temperature of the pipes drops briefly despite the fact that heat is continuing to flow into the cylinder (in fact, it's now flowing in more quickly because of the lower temperature of the return water to the panel).

That's probably not a very good analogy with the global climate system because, as far as I know, there is no known effect of the increased warming on the ocean circulations (yet...) but it does illustrate what I think is a possible way that changes in the circulations (ENSO, PDO, NAO, etc) could reduce global surface temperature a bit without much affecting the way in which heat is accumulating.

This is something I'd like to understand better.

Anyway, from my regressions GISS agrees for some recent periods, e.g., from any month in 2005 to end October 2009 it shows cooling; not that that's very interesting for the sort of reasons I speculated about above and also because it's too short a period to be statistically significant.

[EccentricAnomaly]

Pleased to find a page spelling out what I had only gathered from multiple sources:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm