Wilkins ice shelf breaking away?

ah right. as you were. Thanks for the info.

I read somewhere that if the earth was warming, (and if CO2 was the thing making it warm? not sure if they said it had to be) then the general humidity would increase.

I think this ties in with the temperatures then dropping, because more humidity and more rain must surely mean more plants to remove the excess CO2 from the atmosphere.

Does this mean that the CO2 levels are self-stabilising? And if so, what sort of timescale do you think that would have? years? millennia?

If the ice in the Antarctic ice caps were to melt it would produce enough water to raise sea-levels by 70m; likewise if the Greenland ice cap were to melt it would produce sufficient to cause a 7m rise - these are simple volumetric equations, and as such are accepted as facts.
What was disputed, as detailed in your post, was whether any of this would occur by 2100, and the consensus was that it would not - but if they were to melt at any time in the future, those measurements would produce the stated volume of freshwater.

and the point above with the graph thing is that the evidential data is not following the expected model - it is diverging, quickly and for the worse.

Fred - I'm inclined to agree with the evidence as per that graph - what the courts decide is largely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

BlueQuinn - Humidity (air moisture) would certainly increase with temperature - but that in itself would not cause temperature drops.
The theory is that increased humidity = more clouds = less radiation reaching the lower atmosphere = lower temperatures (but in combination with other factors such as increasing precipitation, which would be more influential, and other more complex chemical interactions)(however this would also mean a lowering in the production of ozone = more radiation!).

The theory about more CO2 being absorbed by plants and therefore CO2 being self stabilising is a nice theory but also nonsense. Firstly plants, and the ocean, have a finite ability to absorb CO2 - they can only take so much, and that limit is near already.
Secondly, more plant growth through CO2 simply isn't going to happen because of the small matter of deforestation - there is arguably less photosynthetic plant cover on the planet than there ever has been before, so unless people start growing plants instead of building roads, and stop chopping down the forests, CO2 reduction through plants gobbling it up simply isn't going to happen. In theory it could happen but would take many millions of generations of plants to do so, and there would need to be no-one chopping them down.

doh - more clouds - that didn't occur to me!

Captain Planet?

Yeah, warmer, but with clouds and rain. Crap for cycling.

don't forget we had ice 1km deep over birmingham as recently as 10,000 years ago nobody complained then

Thats because..

A) Nobody cares about Birmingham, and
B) The brumies I know are hard gits and would have been taking the dog for a walk in a T-shirt regardless.

The ironic thing, living on the westcoast of Norway, is that global warming is actually going to lead to a big freeze for us, if deepening sea levels cut off the gulf stream.

Ah, and that will lower the sea levels again - Norfolk shall be saved.

goes off to buy a jet plane to make sure it happens

checks bank account and changes mind about jet plane

I watch The Day After Tomorrow and then Al Gore's doci (or the other way around). I think the film made his arguments seem all the more realistic and possible.

The main point I picked up was that the melting ice caps and glaciers dilute the salt levels in sea water and that this effects the Golf streat which circulates warm water/air to the northen hemisphere. Once the warm air stops getting pumped around the world then the temperatures will drop and falling rain turns in to snow, which turns in to ice which turns us in to f*ucked.

And I got the feeling from all the examples of contrasting then and now glaciers from 50 years ago, that in another 50 years time, we'll be freezing our nuts off......and so two will livestock and veg and fruit and beer!

I was reading a book on renewable energy the other day and in the introduction chapter it shows all kinds of data showing a rapidly warming planet and skyrocketing CO2 levels. CO2 was at 280ppm for thousands of years and since the start of the industrial revolution has risen to 380ppm and rising. I'm no scientist but that kind of an increase has got to cause problems. That's nearly a 25% increase.

So much energy is wasted needlessly its an absolute disgrace. We all rely on energy sent down pipes & wires to our homes & offices, often to vastly inefficient buildings that require huge injections of energy for light, power & the daddy of them all - heating. With good design masses of this inefficiency can be gotten rid of. People go on about cars etc, homes pollute just as much if not more. Saving the planet starts at home IMHO.

My 2cents

I read that one of the glaciers that was/is receding had locked in a massive underground salt-water lake, so at least one isn't diluting the sea when it melts!

You're right about homes polluting more than cars. I'm fortunate to live in a modern, well built and very well insulated flat that needs only a tiny amount of power to keep warm, but the vast majority of housing stock is 30-150 years old with obsolete heating systems and vast hot water tanks.

I'd be interested in the correlation between CO2 levels and industry/population/farming.
I think the 25% rise in CO2 over that period has a lot more to do with the massive increase in the world's population, and presumably more vegetables grown and animals reared to feed them. The start of the industrial revolution was about 1850. There were 1,262,000 people. In 2008 there were 6,707,000. That's a 530% increase in people. The number has shot up since 1950 (when it was 2,521,000) - presumably because we have much better medicine and haven't had any major wars since then.

The peak of global industrial production was in the 1930s when the world was gearing up for war. Since then industrial activity has dropped a fair bit. Factories and power plants have become more efficient and cleaner. If it was industry mainly driving the CO2 levels they would be going down now, but if population is shooting up at the same rate as CO2 then it's more likely that there are simply too many people.
Industry can be cleaned up, but we're not going to stop humans breeding.

In case this is scaring the shit out of anybody, there is another side to the argument which you will not see in the MSM.

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/faqs-and-myths
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Wilkins_Ice_Shelf_con.pdf
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20070201_monckton.pdf

Anyway there has been no warming in the last ten years. The way the sun is performing we might be entering a cooling period - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/01/nasa-headline-deep-solar-minimum/#more-6706

Anyone remember the 1970's when Time and Newsweek wrote about the coming ice age?

Bloody farmers.

apparently the uk should be in an ice age now, going by previous records, so global warming might well be an alright thing. Definitely puts a positive spin on things.

Indian Runner, those links are bullshit.

Anyone remember the 1970's when Time and Newsweek wrote about the coming ice age?

Yes, and if you understood paleoclimatology you would know that they were correct, and you would also know that if someone were to argue 'climate change is nonsense because they used to say we're entering an ice age', that they didn't know what they were talking about.

As for "there has been no warming in the last ten years" that is the equivalent of saying 'it was hotter yesterday than it was today therefore we are entering an ice age'.

If you want to understand climate science, atmospheric chemistry and paleaoclimatology then you will need to do more than read newspapers and nonsense websites, or listen to the bloke waffling on about it in your office.
I don't like elitism, but if you want to be able to even begin to understand these issues you have to go and learn about them at a level where you can understand the basic concepts. Up until then your opinion is free to be voiced, but it is, like religion and fantasy, baseless.

Up until then your opinion is free to be voiced, but it is, like religion and fantasy, baseless.

Cheesy, will you be my friend ?

Funny thing is I was going to post a (-nother) long rant about how and where we get our information from and what is justifiable knowledge, but you say it well (and with long scientific words).

Are you trying it on?

if he offers you a biscuit don't take it

Like this?

That's not a biscuit, it is the body of Cheesus.

some more things:
a) don't forget the albedo effect that polar ice caps have (they're white and shiny and reflect lots of heat back into space)
b) climate change is a bit more complicated than looking at a graph of mean global temperature, as you need to look at change relative to established patterns for a given region. eg: climate change could cause an ice age in europe, and a long hot drought in other parts. the mean global temp may stay relatively stable, but the effects on our civilisation would be radical. although there is an upward long-term trend in global mean temperature, anyway.
c) climate change denial as an abuse of science is up there with denying evolution by natural selection. there are a few wingnuts out there that deny it, but the evidence and mass of informed peer-reviewed expert scientific opinion points in one direction: it's happening.
d) we're all fucked, start stocking up on baked beans and learn to hunt with a bow and arrow.

badtmy, I will pray for you.

Like this?

Look at the resentment on the sour faced guy in the background on the left.

badtmy, I will pray for you.

fuck off, i don't want to attract attention from angry sky gods who want to watch me in the bath.