Comments on: Climate warming?

By: Climate warming – two very different views! « Learning from Dogs

Climate warming – two very different views! « Learning from Dogs — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:02:57 +0000

[...] The problem for lay persons, such as me, is that it is very difficult to read in the popular media well-reasoned arguments for each side of important issues, such as climate. You can see my confusion being expressed in the opening paragraphs of an earlier Post on Climate Change. [...]

By: Chris Snuggs

Chris Snuggs — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:37:16 +0000

Hats off to Patrice for a brilliant, full, clear and frightening article. I was very interested in Paul’s original post about Global Warming, and much appreciate his healthy scepticism …. anyone following politics would not trust all the pronouncements we hear with a barge pole, and as a layman, one is obliged to try to work out what is going on from a large number of sources.

But I must say the clincher for me is the melting ice at the poles …. there are strange localised effects and in some places it is cooler than usual, but if the ice caps are melting, the scenario is black.

And the second point is my – again amateurish – understanding of “tipping points” and the vicious circles that may develop …. release of methane and so on …. I am elsewhere accused of being a doomsayer, but I am very concerned indeed for my son …. and the worst thing is, even if they are talking about it, looking around me I see little being done, with humungous waste of energy everywhere. One thing is also clear to me, without unprecedented, war-status international cooperation and indeed sacrifice (as the timescale is so short – possibly so short that the danger is under-appreciated) on the part of everyone – we will be in big trouble, possible race-threatening.

Yet as I write I remember a rcent report stating that this year has been one of the best for decades for oil discoveries ….. people (especially oil companies) are exulting in their new finds. What do they propose to do with it, Burn it? Don’t we all need a massive REALITY CHECK?

OK – Patrice, once again thanks – fascinating hard facts and comments.

A+

Well, the debate will continue … let’s hope we have enough time to finish it before we melt, suffocate or drown!

By: Climate warming: the debate « Learning from Dogs

Climate warming: the debate « Learning from Dogs — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:02:26 +0000

[...] the 16th October, we published a Post called Climate warming?. The sub-heading gave a clue to the content of the Post: What’s the truth about climate [...]

By: Paul Handover

Paul Handover — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:25:17 +0000

And in the interests of balance I, too, should add this link to Yale Environment 360 about a recent study of Arctic ice thickness http://e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2101

By: Patrice Ayme

Patrice Ayme — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:06:57 +0000

Lowest ice on record in the Arctic was 2007, then 2008, and now 2009. [More exactly the sea with more than 15% ice reflecting.]
As I pointed out on http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2009/05/
(May 31, 2009).
The sun has been going down in the last 30 years or so… Watch the nice graph there, extracted from Science Mag…

We are just coming out of a solar minimum so pronounced that cosmic rays, less deflected by the sun’s magnetic field, have become a problem… This explains why greenhouse heating has been less pronounced than some expected in the last few years. Things should pick up in the next 7 years, as the sun heats up. The multiplying factor is 3 or 4…