486 replies to this topic

[badboy657]

summer blizzard, on 26 September 2010 - 15:30 , said:

Some overreaction in this thread i have to say..

Firstly, i have not seen anybody saying that we have been in a solar minima, the solar cycle is widely acknowleged and we achieved the solar minimum in November 2008, solar activity is actually increasing again.

Secondly, in regards to the Maunder Minimum, it is true that over the next century solar activity will be quite low which may have an effect on global temperatures, however you can not claim it has started on the basis of solar activity increasing later than expected and probably not to the same level as forecast, though from 2015, we are likely to see prolonged minima.

Lastly, right now global temperatures are increasing, primarily lead by thermal ocean expansion, nobody can deny this.

we are in a solar minimum and will continue this way into the next cycle as most solar scientist expect this to be the case.
although activity has increased its way way down on recent cycles this i feel will have an effect on global temps over time along with rise in volcanic activity which has also seemed to be more active now solar output is lower,plus the jet streams behavour has changed add pdo amo i can only see a decline for awhile.

but all this said alot of people talk of rising of global temps but this is only over a 30 year average,
but this has been the subject of debate because of the medievil warm period which is said to be warmer than today if this is the case then maybe we have more warming to come before the earth cools,
but in my opion the warm stretch is coming to an end.

but i think alot of people dont understand that an ice age is not like the day after tomorrow movie its a slow process,
and im very much into the solar particals theory aswell.

but over all nobody really knows the future they can only guess wat will happen from past events.

and no matter what anyone says there is evidence on both sides which leads me to my point its all to soon to really know the answers.

Edited by badboy657, 26 September 2010 - 17:18 .

[Essan]

What weakening of the Gulf Stream?

Mind, even if it switched off altogether we'd struggle to be as cold as we were in Britain in the 1970s ....

[Paul]

Here's the global temperature graph, and whilst some years buck the trend, the long term trend is pretty clear..

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

adamjones416, on 26 September 2010 - 17:05 , said:

So your saying that the weakening of the Gulf stream and the low sunspots are not fact backed up by good evidence which they are? That's kind of a slippery slope

You missed the point that I was making.

Yes, that might well be quantitative evidence, but what does it mean?

I will not presuppose what point you are trying to make, but, if I may, I will make an addendum: assuming that low sunspots, and a weak gulf-stream spell an imminent cold spell why is the long term trend still up, and, exactly when do you predict that they will go down? For how long, and for what reason?

The regulars around here will know I am not being specious, here: indeed, I have long argued for sunspots to be a key indicator of climate. My research, however, points to temperatures up and up and up (possibly a 3 decade drop in about 7 years or so)

But, evidence is evidence is evidence.

[Cymro]

Paul, on 26 September 2010 - 17:23 , said:

Here's the global temperature graph, and whilst some years buck the trend, the long term trend is pretty clear..

I'm not denying those figures but for such an increase to happen its got to have some counter effect i.e melting of ice caps will release lower density water into the oceans thus blocking the gulf stream which in turn would allow for ice build up and then a balancing off cooling off?. And my argument is are we starting to see this? Some scientist say that the reduction of the gulf streams activity has been as much as 25% since the 70s. Now surly this is a counter argument to the global tempreatures increasing and is the onset effect of this?

VillagePlank, on 26 September 2010 - 17:48 , said:

You missed the point that I was making.

Yes, that might well be quantitative evidence, but what does it mean?

I will not presuppose what point you are trying to make, but, if I may, I will make an addendum: assuming that low sunspots, and a weak gulf-stream spell an imminent cold spell why is the long term trend still up, and, exactly when do you predict that they will go down? For how long, and for what reason?

The regulars around here will know I am not being specious, here: indeed, I have long argued for sunspots to be a key indicator of climate. My research, however, points to temperatures up and up and up (possibly a 3 decade drop in about 7 years or so)

But, evidence is evidence is evidence.

Many have misunderstood and seem to think I am of the opinion that there is some kind of ice age imminent when I am not. That whole logic is even laughable no climate will drastically change liek that over night, what I'm advocating is are we beginning to see signs of increased global ice, cooler tempreatures balancing off and as such nature reacting to the colosal effect we have had on the earths temperature?. There have been warmer periods in the past only to be offset by cooler periods its happened throughout history and there is no reason why this isn't the case now.

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

adamjones416, on 26 September 2010 - 17:51 , said:

I'm not denying those figures but for such an increase to happen its got to have some counter effect i.e melting of ice caps will release lower density water into the oceans thus blocking the gulf stream which in turn would allow for ice build up and then a balancing off cooling off?. And my argument is are we starting to see this? Some scientist say that the reduction of the gulf streams activity has been as much as 25% since the 70s. Now surly this is a counter argument to the global tempreatures increasing and is the onset effect of this?

Well, no.

The Gulf stream is all about NW Europe, mainly. If there is some climatic effect going on, you should, I think, be able to see it in the CET series. Funnily enough, I've some reasonably serious natural cycle analysis, in a sort of mathematical way, of the CET, here.

It doesn't make pretty reading - but if you are looking for the Gulf Stream signal in climate - the CET is the source I think you should be looking at - especially if it's been in decline since 1970 (ish) - it should be obvious and clear.

Edited by VillagePlank, 26 September 2010 - 18:00 .

[WhiteXmas]

Ice Age? I am not so sure. However I definitely think there are patterns beginning to develop now which contrive to suggest that there is certainly a period of cooling taking place. Last winter was a sign of our descent from "global warming". I had backed an unusually cold winter last year and this year I am on record as backing the same thing. I do not know what to make of the North Atlantic Current debacle however going by satellite images it certainly appears as if these "scaremongerers" could very well be right about its decline.

Village Plank....Good point, couldn't agree more.

Edited by WhiteXmas, 26 September 2010 - 17:59 .

[Paul]

Adam, the question you're asking in the poll is whether global temperatures are rising - the answer to that is yes, there really can't be any doubt?

Beyond that - I'm no climate scientist and we all know about the opposing views on this subject, but from a purely statistical point of view it'll take the mother of all swings to bring it back to levels we were seeing even 20 years ago, and even if a number of cooling factors came into play, who's to say they'll do anything more than slow the rise?

This next year could be an interesting test - not much sun activity and a major la nina likely, it should in theory mean a big drop in global temps in the shorter term I would imagine - how low will they go though? If they don't drop much when those two factors are in play then it's virtually impossible to see anything other than a continued long term rise imo - and that's completely ignoring the co2 debate..

[Cymro]

Paul, on 26 September 2010 - 18:01 , said:

Adam, the question you're asking in the poll is whether global temperatures are rising - the answer to that is yes, there really can't be any doubt?

Beyond that - I'm no climate scientist and we all know about the opposing views on this subject, but from a purely statistical point of view it'll take the mother of all swings to bring it back to levels we were seeing even 20 years ago, and even if a number of cooling factors came into play, who's to say they'll do anything more than slow the rise?

This next year could be an interesting test - not much sun activity and a major la nina likely, it should in theory mean a big drop in global temps in the shorter term I would imagine - how low will they go though? If they don't drop much when those two factors are in play then it's virtually impossible to see anything other than a continued long term rise imo - and that's completely ignoring the co2 debate..

Fair enough points but as well all know about statistics they never tell the full story do they. I dont doubt the temperature rising either but what I do argue is this must trigger another reaction which ought to balance things ought and are we on the cusp of something like that coming into fruition. Your right however when talking about the next year or so because in theory it should be rather cool but when theory is put into practically we all know it never pans out like it should. A bit like comunism, perfect on paper in reality a complete mess.

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

adamjones416, on 26 September 2010 - 18:07 , said:

Fair enough points but as well all know about statistics they never tell the full story do they. I dont doubt the temperature rising either but what I do argue is this must trigger another reaction which ought to balance things ought and are we on the cusp of something like that coming into fruition. Your right however when talking about the next year or so because in theory it should be rather cool but when theory is put into practically we all know it never pans out like it should. A bit like comunism, perfect on paper in reality a complete mess.

You must talking about the red-top type of stats .... the work done on the climate is, in the main, par excellence, and for very good reason. You might find me arguing the 'toss' about such things, but that's me being the devil in and amongst the details, and usually because I don't really understand it fully.

Edited by VillagePlank, 26 September 2010 - 18:11 .

[Paul]

Lol communism doesn't look perfect on paper to me!!

And when we're talking about a straight forward figure - ie global temperatures, then statistics are actually pretty handy!

[RAIN RAIN RAIN]

Hasn't the monthly global mean temperature been above average for the past 150 months or thereabouts?

[kold weather]

I do have to wonder exactly how dependable those stats of temps are before say 1900...I'd say very unrealiable indeed but who knows!

Anyway you don't get a sustained La Nina without cooling and the Oceanic temps are slowly coming down but are still impressivly warm...

I suspect what will happen this winter is we get a +VE AO which will lead to a strong Subtropical belt overall (though thus far it hasn't really worked that way this La Nina) this would then lead to a slow but steady drop in the Ocean anomalies seen in quite a few basins and obviously the longer the La Nina holds the greater the effects of this will be. Eventually it will work its way through the whole system and cools things down BUT we have to come down from a near record breaking point and will need a period of cooling probably even more sustained then we saw between 1999-2001 and 2007-2009...

So yeah we will cool in the short term, but long term all that is happening is we are heading towards a period that will stall temps more or less close to where they are.

Next 5 years will be the peak.
Following say 15-20 years see maybe a slight drop away at the start followed by a maybe a slight rise.
After that it all depends on any -PDO but at some point that flips and temps rise faster...
Once we get another say 10 years beyond that and the AMO flips back positive, things will rocket upwards again like we've seen in the past 10 years.

One other thing, its worth noting that the last 15 years *could not have been any more FAVOURABLE for warming* you had the perfect combo of the PDO being warm, the AMO really powering up as well as a fairly rampant sun for large chunks of that period bar the last 2-3 years. That on top of the obvious background warming is always going to lead to things shooting upwards rapidly...the real test for GW/AGW is probably just beginning now.

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

kold weather, on 26 September 2010 - 18:24 , said:

One other thing, its worth noting that the last 15 years *could not have been any more FAVOURABLE for warming* you had the perfect combo of the PDO being warm, the AMO really powering up as well as a fairly rampant sun for large chunks of that period bar the last 2-3 years. That on top of the obvious background warming is always going to lead to things shooting upwards rapidly...the real test for GW/AGW is probably just beginning now.

That's an interesting point, but the question it ferments (as all good science questions do - you ask a good one, and that good one yields more and more questions) is that is weather driven by climate, or is climate simply a summary of weather ....

[WhiteXmas]

Is the slowing down of the Jet Stream indicative of a climate change? After all the currents are the source of balance for our climate. And what factor(s) would be to blame for the cause of the decline of the North Atlantic Drift if it were to happen?

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

Anyway - here's some (untested, and uncompiled - one of the function stubs doesn't even have enough brackets!!) code for my work on sunspots. I hope it makes you laugh like it did my wife - and it's completely legitimate code for transforming the sexagesimal number system to the decimal system that we all know and love.

Here it is - the Ada specification file:



After all, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry ....

Edited by VillagePlank, 26 September 2010 - 18:45 .

[Cymro]

Well I for one didn't expect so much discussion in this topic and am greatly proud that it's attracted so much attention

[Boar Wrinklestorm]

adamjones416, on 26 September 2010 - 18:44 , said:

Well I for one didn't expect so much discussion in this topic and am greatly proud that it's attracted so much attention

Well, like all good topics more questions are raised than are answered. First one: does the gulf stream affect climate? If it does how, why, when, where and what? I'm sure we can all agree to bin the 'day after tomorrow'

Possibly an important one, as the UK in likely to be first in the firing line.

[WhiteXmas]

adamjones416, on 26 September 2010 - 18:44 , said:

Well I for one didn't expect so much discussion in this topic and am greatly proud that it's attracted so much attention

When it involves ice age specualtion it is bound to attract attention!

[cyclonic happiness]

Essan, on 26 September 2010 - 08:56 , said:

The YD also occurred when much of the N Hemisphere was still covered by retreating ice sheets and there were still big glaciers in Scotland. Whatever caused the YD could not possibly have the same results today.

As for a new ice age - I'll worry when the Baffin ice caps are bigger than they have been in the past 2,000 years. They're currently at their smallest extent ....

Interesting though that despite a solar min and climate change catastrophists claiming a new ice age is imminent (didn't they learn from the debacle of the 1970s?) we're currently experiencing one of the warmest years on record with many places experiencing exceptonal summer heatwaves and nowhere in the S Hemisphere having an especially cold winter overall.

So when exactly is it all meant to start?





Yes. And the next glacial phase of the ice age is not expected for several thousand years - the current changes in N Hemisphere insolation which caused the Neoglacial, desertification of the Sahara etc not being being sufficent on its own to cause a glacial - we need all the orbital cycles to combine for that. We might expact some increase in ice caps though. Which makes it odd that the opposite is happening ..... We may be in a brief warm phases within the general downward spiral, but if so it ought be less warm than the previous one, with consequently less ice cap retreat than seen in the MWP. Ooops ...

well if science is to be believed the earth is still flat?