Damn - second dump of snow in 3 weeks , and three times as much this time.

We just dont get this weather , and heading off to work was a bit of a mission at 7.00 this morning.Best part of 10 inches of the wet stuff on the lawn , bit more out in the paddocks . Had to give the sheep and cows extra rations of hay in the dark since there wasnt any grass to be seen . Still isnt anygrass on view yet , nearly 12 hours later . Bit rough on the lamb born over night but he seems to be coping .

It can all go away now , I am over the picture postcard views and scenic wonder......

Its going to be on the news tonight. Big dumps everywhere.

Had a good dump here too. We don't get it often, but I'm over it after one day. Walking behind cows before daylight in snow flurrys does nothing for me.

Shanks - Ive done enough of that in my time too - now digging holes and fixing water leaks in the snow has less appeal as well.

Whatever happened to global warming , I ask ???

We here in Gisborne never got any... sun as usual. It was pretty cozy in the workshop too.. with the welders going

Glad you guys are over the novelty of that cold horrid stuff. BUT at the same time it probably doesn't do you any harm to havea taste of it every now and again just so you can "relate" to those of us that put up with it a little more often.
I've just taken 3days to get from pukekohe to auckalnd and back to wanaka! should have been 35minute drive then an 1hr 35min flt. Left Sunday arvo. Last leg after we finally got back to the mainland was a 8hr drive from ChCh to Wanaka via Dunedin and Alex, all other roads closed, no acccomo in Chch and rentals hard to find. Such fun.

Yeah, i've wondered for some years at the mentality of people who live around Queenstown.

quote:

Originally posted by muzza:

Whatever happened to global warming , I ask ???

Well, I'm going sambar hunting Saturday and for the first time in August I'll take gaiters against snake bite.

The general scientific wisdom (ie of scientists not on the fossil-fuel gravy train) is that crazy weather is part of global warming, as I recall predicted as far back as 1985. I can't explain how it works but have never really got the hang of kerosene fridges, either. I do remember that the Eastern US had big snow falls last winter yet the West was unseasonably warm.

Anyway, the measurements of temperature the scientist use are not plucked out of isolated areas but averaged from figures taken periodically at stations all around the world, including the sea. And despite the claims of Lord Monckton's ilk, these figures show the world is getting progressively hotter.

quite so #338
for the station data
the hard part is that the real answer lays in the total heat balance & data is not available to provide that accurately.

a large part of the truth test is in ocean water height.........if the icemelt from warming is to be believed.
the data there is extremely good in fossil coral over many many thousands of years.

That data shows that we have been at the plateau of a warm cycle for the best part of the last 100 yrs & the rate of change in that period is one of the most stable in the history of modern man.
He He ........this just doesn't fit the man made global warming hypothesis.

what we certainly do have in the last half century or so , is an increase in the variability & violence of weather patterns.

whilst some might see this as a portent of climate change from correlations to events surrounding historical cooling warming trends in global climate..........its not causative of change.
There are others who see this recent violent & variable weather trend as man made & identify its cause as a significant change in the heatsink of the tropical & semi-tropical regions of the world from de-forrestation in man's increasing food cultivation to feed his burgeoning population in particularly 3rd world nations.

Science has shown that this is altering the strength of monsoonal weather patterns & this is disrupting adjacent weather patterns in other latitudes.

Complex world we live in & its easy to find a data set to tell you whatever you want to see or hear.
Truth is , the world has has many climate cycles in its history and the current situation of the last half century to century is well within those norms.

Scientific truth is achieved when the evidence can prove cause & effect.
Sadly we have a very emotive proposition of global warming that is unable to identify data that proves cause & effect , where very reliable data is available that clearly shows that the global effect of supposed warming on ocean levels is not occurring.

That's not to say there has been no change, merely that the scaremongering propositions of huge rises in ocean levels is not happening in balance with the supposed level of "global warming".

many of those who abused the use of the words "Global Warming" in the media gave changed their words to "climate change" ........and that's been going on since forever , with our current climate quite stable in total historical world heat balance.

The emotive global warming hype is pretty much the same as saying that because there was an earthquake in Christchurch NZ........that New Zealand is falling into the ocean.

Patently , that is a misuse of factual data into a flawed hypothesis of doom & gloom.

I suggest that the proposition of manmade influences on Global warming is a political agenda..........not a reality.

FWIW

quote:

Originally posted by shankspony:
Yeah, i've wondered for some years at the mentality of people who live around Queenstown.

Stepdaughter got tired of being shaken about in Christchurch and has moved to Queen'stown beginning of the month. I suppose being numbed by the cold, you do not notice if it is shaking a bit.

Awesome! We had snow in New Plymouth. Saw it from the window while doing my shoe lacs in the morning! Went to colect my home killom the butcher and stood out in the snow & wind for half an hour.

Freezing cold for the next few days but loved the dry cold. NOT the miscerable wet cold!

and now its back to the miserable wet cold again...yah, not

quote:

Originally posted by DenisB:
quite so #338
... Scientific truth is achieved when the evidence can prove cause & effect...

True, but this is the kind of stuff the tobacco industry hid behind for 40 years until the scientific method could finally establish what was pretty much the bleeding obvious.

The reason the nations of the world met in Kyoto and Copenhagen is most likely because their governments' scientific advisers opined that global warming was a credible danger. That they failed to agree on what to do about it was the political bit.

In Australia, for instance, we have a respected scientific commission called the CSIRO; it makes no bones of its acceptance that man-made global warming is a real-and-present danger to the future of our descendents. I am not a scientist but I much prefer to accept the CSIRO's opinion than the sophistry of the denialists.

Continuing to smoke because no one could prove it caused cancer may have been a justifiable personal risk for a nicotine addict; to ignore the likely but yet-unproved dangers from greenhouse gases is putting our material comfort ahead of the lives of our children's children and grandchildren.

People knew in the 1920's that smoking was bad for a person. People today know smoking is bad for them, yet they continue to smoke, and new people begin to smoke.

Global climate change has been going on for millions of years. The current scientists that shout 'climate change' need to scare the taxpayers/governments in order to continue getting government grants to continue the study. If taxpayers aren't afraid, the scientist's money supply drys up.

For Liberals, everything has to be a 'crisis'.

I apologize if I am hijacking this thread.

Dont apologize mate - the whole global warming industry is driven by neo-scientists justifying their existance and seeking continuation of their government funded incomes.

Certainly man has had an effect on the worlds climate , as has past ice ages and droughts.

200 years ago when the dissemination of information - or mis-information -, was controlled by those in power , to a largely illiterate and povertry stricken population there was an ability to keep most people uninformed. Today we have the ability to know stuff as it happens - hence we have now got a huge global industry bombarding us with neo-science on climate change .

But interestingly , for every piece of information that says the world is getting warmer and we are all going to die - there is another study that proves its all a load of shit .

My own view is that the worlds climate is entirely cyclic , always has been - always will be , and we are seeing that cyclic change being recorded better , and the information made available to anyone who cares to read it .

The end is nigh ??? Dont think so ...

Bout time really, the climate has had a major effect on man, seems only fair we get some of our own back.

The weather is having a lash at our friends on the US East coast at the moment with "Irene".

Good luck to those in her path & Be Safe .

I hope this thread does not become an "Americanised" bash of science and "liberals".

Let us get some fact up front.

[LIST]

Polar ice caps are melting

Himalayan glaciers are melting and the snow line has gone up.

Areas formerly covered in ice and snow are now full of new mountain lakes and raging torrents - resulting in new soil errotion high up in the Himalayas.

Here in "Godzone" we can see the changes in the southern glasierres like Fox, Franz Josef & others. Amazing & sad to see that the glasiers have gone back by many kilometers in just the last 30 years.

These are facts and not propaganda or theory.

There are other facts & co-relations that people leave out when discussing this subject

In the last 100 years humans have become very industrialised with the use of electricity, oil & nuclear energy. Coal has been is use for a very long time

In the last 50 years the growth of industries such as mining & building constructions using such energy has been exponential. It does not matter whose numbers you want to accept. It is enough to admit that the level of mining & construction is 100 times or 500 times or 1000 times more than 100 years ago..... in other words a VERY BIG NUMBER by any account.

We have also cut down forests and destroyed other natural habitat at an alarming rate in the last 50 years. This has lead to huge levels of soil errosion and changes in water table. Again - it does not matter whose numbers you want to believe - it is enough to say that the levels of soil errosion and water table changes has been exponential in the last 50 years.

New islands have delevoped out at sea in many areas from the soil errosion washed down by the big rivers. Ttoday with photos from space we have great info on this. Whether it is the Bay of Bengal or the Amazon delta - this is a hughe phenomenon that has escalated in the last 50 years. What took 500 to 5000 years to happen, is now happening in 50 years.

All this soil errosion, construction activity, mining, vehicle traffic, industrial activity & lower water tables is resulting in a huge increase in dust, smog and air polution. You can see it all over the world.

The other BIG fact that most of the scientist or the denyers seem to recognise is the complex implications of smog, ozone layer and global warming.

Again facts - the ozone layer is getting thiner & UV rays are increasing - instances of skin cancer have gone up many times - irrespective of whose numbers.....

But the huge mass of dust in the air is causing A BIG PHENOMENON THAT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT - GLOBAL DIMMING . Yes the sun's rays are actually being blocked out by a much larger layer of dust and smog. In other words, if we did not have all that soil errosion and industrial dust, we might be getting even hotter and getting more cancer, more drought etc.

If we did not have the green house gasses and smaller ozone layer, the uv rays would be less & we would not get so hot. BUT then the smog & dust blocking a cooler sun would make it GLOBAL COOLING! We would be heading towards another iceage due to smog & dust in the atmosphere. There is the paradox - very complex.

That does not mean that the plundering of the environment is a good thing. It just means that we are in very big S@#%t but do not understand the complex causes & effects. Big industries will keep spending billions on meadia releases, lobby groups and what ever to preserve their short term gains.

Get out the sun screen lotion ... spring is almost here in the Naki!

"When the wind stops....start rowing. When the wind starts, get the sail up quick."

God I love a spirited debate....;-)

Muzza is a stirrer.

The complexity of the world climate is a big problem for assessing global changes.
most everyone tends to see it in localised vision.
you can pick & choose your data to generate proof of almost any story you want to tell.Whether its data valid to the real story is another matter.

No science bash ( I have a science background)
but science is only as good as the data it uses.
50 yrs ago the scientists were telling the world loudly that potato consumption was causing obesity because of its carbohydrate composition
30 yrs later they "discovered" the difference between simple carbohydrates & complex carbohydrates in human metabolism & suddenly potato was highly beneficial in the human metabolic processes & the problem was what we put on the potato when we consumed it.

No fraud...........just the data set used in the correlation that said potato was bad.
Different , more accurate data relevant to the real issue ........different answer.......black is suddenly white.
ditto the hole in the Ozone layer , more recent data says its smaller , other analyses is identifying the cycles in ozone layer abundance are a quite natural event too.
ditto the supposed reflectance of CO2 causing global warming by trapping heat like a blanket.
the fact that H20 in the atmosphere also reflects the same frequency band & that its effect is saturated in efficiency in the atmosphere is another uncomfortable truth test for the simple science that just looked at the reflectance of CO2 & said ........Ahh this is where the problem is.
Suddenly the CO2 isue is looking a lot like potatoes , correct science of the day .........just data used in the wrong context.

The truth test of global warming is total atmospheric humidity & ocean heights.

The coral at Osprey Reef is a data set validated by general consensus in the scientific community for pacific ocean water height , with a data set that goes back thousands upon thousands of years & many climate cycles.
that data set is available on-line.
It shows a plateau in pacific ocean water height for the last 60 yrs where man's influence on climate is supposed to be the greatest by far.

The question to be answered IF global warming & man's causing it.........is where is the water from those glaciers & polar icecaps going.
it isn't going into the world's oceans at the rate that data on individual localised icemelt data would indicate if the melting trend was truly world wide.
BTW
one of the first data rich scientific global warming sceptics was & is an NZ scientist ............no 'americanisation' there.

He He.

All the individual correlations for all the parameters thought to be part of the global climate equation ............aren't worth much ............if you can't find all the melted water that's supposed to be around.

Rub your hands together with glee Muzza.
this debate can go on forever .........

Unless you've got one of those professional-denier jobs paid for by the energy companies, Denis, I suspect your science background is letting you down on this matter. Even the Skeptics Society accepts global warming. Because ice is about 10% bulkier than water, the melting of the Arctic ice won't add much and, compared with the multitudinous seas, all that's coming off glaciers won't make much difference to sea level. The big change will be when the ice sheets come off Antarctica and Greenland. Then Bangladesh will be under strain, esp. when big storms come.

The definition of asylum seekers will be tested when that happens.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:

quote:

Originally posted by muzza:

Whatever happened to global warming , I ask ???

I do remember that the Eastern US had big snow falls last winter yet the West was unseasonably warm.

Nope, not even close. Unseasonably cold, high precipitation in the West also. Record breaking snow and flooding.

Same weather patterns that the US has been having since they started measuring. High and low temperatures, precip, etc. get broken every year across the country. Why? Records have been kept for a tick of the clock. Nothing new. Nothing outside the standard deviation.

Everyone believes in something. Global warming, er, climate change, er, whatever they're going to call it next is another option.

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
Unless you've got one of those professional-denier jobs paid for by the energy companies, Denis, I suspect your science background is letting you down on this matter. Even the Skeptics Society accepts global warming. Because ice is about 10% bulkier than water, the melting of the Arctic ice won't add much and, compared with the multitudinous seas, all that's coming off glaciers won't make much difference to sea level. The big change will be when the ice sheets come off Antarctica and Greenland. Then Bangladesh will be under strain, esp. when big storms come.

The definition of asylum seekers will be tested when that happens.

He He ........job description is entirely the opposite . I make my living hunting & harvesting the marine environment & dealing with reviewing the scientific validity of reports by Govt scientists & consultants across a bunch of agencies.

I think you might misunderstand where I am coming from.
I'm not in denial of change occurring.......just questioning the validity & lack of proof of cause & effect proffered by some of the NGO's & scientists who have jumped on the policy gravy train.

I agree in principle with your example of the effect of melting floating ice sheets.
But I'm not the one who is claiming massive rises in ocean water height from thinning terrestrial ice cover & glacial contraction.

All I'm saying is that in the current warm cycle in global weather (which is longer than the personal experience of anyone on this planet of ours).........that the supposed melt in that time has not been evidenced in the observable ocean height change.
The issue has been hyped.

all I am also saying is that a research project result that measures the reflectance of heat radiation by CO2 is not directly translatable into atmospheric physics.
Concurrent with particulate "smog" reflectance of incoming hat radiation , without taking into consideration the SO2 emissions of perpetual volcanic activity and the breakdown rate of those compounds it makes the science used by some a farce.

The really hard part in all of this is taking the emotion out of the issue and teasing out the real scientifically valid evidence of cause & effect.........good or bad result, no matter , just valid evidence of real cause & effect.

valid evidence bad result ........mitigation reaction warranted.
Bad science , emotive argument ........no mitigation warranted.

In Oz the Govt weather bureau pats itself on the back with getting 24hr weather predictions right 70% of the time.
now that's not tomorrow's weather predicted today .........its the current midnight to midnight weather stats predicted at 9AM within that 24 Hr period.
You can make almost any story you want by picking the data you choose to tell that story.

The point was made by another poster that Govt policy sets the science research agenda & the type of result that the Govt expects to see from its science budget & the research funding recipient needs to provide ........if they expect any future funding.

Terms of reference for the project qualifying for Gov't funding is set by Govt & its agencies .......in most cases it also sets the framework of the results..........but its got a bunch of high falutting scientists names on the report that the Govt then uses to justify its actions
( which just happen to involve taxes on items & increased govt income ).

Notice that in Oz the largest recipient of carbon tax income is social benefit , not CO2 reduction by those recipients.
I'm supposed to believe all this is real effort to reduce the claimed environmental cuprit.

Sorry ..........pull the other leg.
Human cause of global warming & Global warming itself is Govt policy .......its not fact......good scientific proof of cause & effect has not been shown at a global level.

Sure this winter Perth had a record run of 20 or so days of 100 Deg weather, but most of the East coast was freezing along with NZ at the same time.
all that happened was that the Katabatic winds out of antartica shifted easterly & pushed the cold fronts up into the 'Bight missing the west coast , instead of pushing the cold fronts up into the Indian Ocean & thence to Perth.
Huge difference for Perth & the rest of the west coast ........bugger all difference in Global heat balance terms.

I've had 30 yrs exposure to Draft Govt science reports & reviewing them in formal C'tee's.
I've done my share of 'truth testing' & identifying bad science, errors in models & resultant amendment of final reports published.
enough to do me a lifetime .

I have no emotive agenda in what I'm saying , I just demand good science .
Where there is good science I have authored mitigation measures, I've tossed a heap of bad science in the bin & suffered Govt actions based on bad science they chose to use to justify their actions .

Its a cruel world ,
It's a lot less cruel when its based on good science where cause is validated by effect in real science ........not Gov'ts publicity machine justifying policy initiatives based on self interest in its funding arrangements.

He He .......even the esteemed publiciser of Global Warming ( the ex US VP) has changed his tune from Global Warming to climate change.
He had just a little trouble finding valid proof of his assertions when the data he was using was subjected to independent scientific peer group review.

It just so happened that the data set the proposition of human cause of Global Warming was primarily based on ........went missing when independent scientists sought access to it to review it.
The US university that housed the data set suddenly did not have the room or the funding to continue to support it.........so they dumped it in a "cost efficiency" review.
Funny about that.
Funny about the timing in the change in the terminology about climate in that esteemed ex VP's words too.

Everybody that works in computer modelling knows the words
'Sh&t in Sh*t out'.........the result is only as good as the data input.

The corollary of " pick your data to give the result you want to see" has brought some significant environmentalists grief & retractions when subjected to independent peer review........particularly in recent times.

Muzza is a stirrer.
Another 3/4 Hr wasted, out of my life .

Sambarman you are absolutely entitled to your view, I just don't have to accept it as validly formed.

I can post the velocity of my loads & you don't have to believe them either........but at least I can justify them by having validating them against a chrono that has been checked against a control load to give me confidence in them.

As for the asylum seekers the Govt is struggling in muddy water up to its neck with that issues ..........the 'truth testers' in the High court have found the justification for that Gov't policy initiative wanting
.......He He.

On that note I rest my case.

hope you find a nice buck to harvest this weekend

quote:

Muzza is a stirrer.

Shit guys - keep that quiet will ya , or poor ol gryphs bloodpressure will go through the roof and I wouldnt want that on my conscience ....

Gentlemen, Gentlemen--If you would kindly observe all the data given to us by the scientific community and to it what is known history, we could be a little calmer when discussing the subject.

It is a known fact that within 50,000 years we will be in the middle of another ICE AGE so we are where we are supposed to be, in the middle of a WARM UP.

All this BS about the oceans rising and flooding the main land is nothing more than a way to scam the taxpayers out of money which should be going to the living rather than the DEAD.

Just go back to sleep for a while and all will turn out o.k.

How the hell did we go from snowing in NZ to a debate of global warming

Where you bin hiding Bakes ? Dont you know that the snow was caused by Global Warming - all that hot air that politicians blow out their arses.
The two are intricately intertwined and as such are more than worthy of inclusion in this debate - as long as you keep it a secret that I am a stirrer ....

You can blind me with science, Denis, but I'd like to call a champion to put my side. Google James E. Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and tell me where he has gone wrong.

I agree with you that the pollies have gone soft in the belly on the terminology. Presumably their focus groups and spin doctors have told them what might possibly play in Peoria, though after the fossil-fuel producers' push polling, it probably won't.

Cheers
- Paul

quote:

as long as you keep it a secret that I am a stirrer ....

You a stirrer.....nah.....

quote:

Originally posted by sambarman338:
I'd like to call a champion to put my side. Google James E. Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and tell me where he has gone wrong.

The issue with his work is identified a couple of posts above & earlier
"quote - DenisB
The point was made by another poster that Govt policy sets the science research agenda & the type of result that the Govt expects to see from its science budget & the research funding recipient needs to provide ........if they expect any future funding. Terms of reference for the project qualifying for Gov't funding is set by Govt & its agencies .......in most cases it also sets the framework of the results..........but its got a bunch of high falutting scientists names on the report that the Govt then uses to justify its actions ( which just happen to involve taxes on items & increased govt income ). "

So the first question to be answered is whether his data selection in his analysis is influenced by his Gov't funding.
and therefore is your "Champion" tainted in pandering his outcomes towards Govt expectations.
NASA has been struggling with its funding from Gov't for some time.........but they've got Obama on-side now..........Whoo Hoo we are going to Mars.
A bunch of NASA jobs are now secure for another decade.

Beats me Denis,
I dunno if James E. Hansen is a highfalutin name. I'd never heard of him until he turned up on Phillip Adams's 'Late Night Live' a couple of years ago. He sounded pretty much like the voice of reason, to me. I didn't get the idea he was pandering to government expectations but rather that the government was a disappointment to him because of what it was failing to do. I think he was one of the first guys to start ringing the bells about this matter.

Going to Mars? Buggered if I know - but beam me up, Scotty, it'll be cooler than Venus and that might be where everyone else is going.

Yep, who knows what his view was based on.
The key issue is validation by a peer review group of the data on which the proposition /result was based
a lot of people have reputations at stake in this human cause of Global Warming concept.
There has been a concerted effort by a group of independent scientists to reconstruct the data base that led to the original concept that Gore promulgated in the media.
Time will tell when they validate the data & its sources.
its a bit worrying when the data goes missing as soon as attempts are made to access & review it.
Its a bit like the bank telling you that you are overdrawn by $10,000 without giving you a statement with the individual transactions in it.............but wanting you to pay up immediately while they check the computer.....sometime in the next few years.

Each of us forms a view based on partial information in this very complex issue,or assumptions of credibility of someone else giving a summary , be it you , me , Al Gore or a billion other people.

We need all the data on the table , peer reviewed , & then we can form a truly valid assessment of the strength of the issue or not.

Till then we are left with personal perceptions of what we think is valid data & what we think are "truth tests" of supposed cause & effect, as to whether our personal view is that its a big problem, a little problem, or not a problem at all........... that we are causing.
One things for sure tho.
If you think, as a Gov't, that it is a problem , you should be using ALL the money you are collecting to slow down the supposed problem to fix the problem & progress towards alternatives........not use the money for social objectives that have no impact on the mitigation of the problem you perceive.

when that happens you can bet the problem is in the policy , not the environment.
You don't fix a problem by having one group compensate another group to continue doing what they were doing.

BTW
a report has recently been released using the recorded water heights at Sydney Harbour ( Fort Denison) since the sailing days ............that says that rising ocean heights is a very little issue .........but does not attempt to identify cause between natural climate change variation & supposed human intervention concepts.
what it dos say ,IIRC, is that......... IF we humans are contributing at all , its not actually causing much.

Rest Easy Muzza...........NZ is not falling into the ocean..........its just sliding slowly over the ditch to join us in OZ.........we'll give you a couple more votes than Tasmania when you get here.........He He.

We agree, Denis, that definitive scientific proof of anything is a very hard thing to find, esp. when you can't cook up the ingredients on a lab bench, judge the results and repeat them whenever needed.

That said, scientists do have opinions, like anyone else, and I'd rather trust theirs than those of Alan Jones, Rupert Murdoch and Lord Monckton.

What the consensus of opinion among scientists is can be argued about but, listening to ABC science shows and reading the non-Murdoch press, it is my understanding it is overwhelmingly that man-made global warming is a real threat to us.

I agree also that government responses to it are pretty puny. My only answer to that is: you've got to start somewhere and, when the populist Opposition is kicking butt simply by saying no, getting a foot in the door is better than achieving nothing. The Greens policy is certainly pure but the problem is they are less experienced in real-politic. When coal is a country's biggest export it would be a brave government that resolved to close it down instantly. And so, Gillard's plans are to take it slow. The compensations the polluters will get is not total, and so they will also have incentive to change their business models. Individuals who get compensation could just spend it on their increasing coal-fired power bills - but the government hopes they will keep the money and try to save power, thereby helping the cause.

True progress may never be made but progressive gestures by governments throughout the world look to be the only way to move forward at the moment.

And if we fail, I'd rather be on the side that can say, as Australia finally goes up in a puff of smoke some torrid February, at least we tried.

ABC not being political.........or having its own lean ...........now ,now.

The really hard part is finding the science that explains the mechanism in an appropriate order of accuracy to the observed results.
there is a whole bunch of chemistry & physics out there that explains relationships between a limited number of parameters in any given instance for cause & effect...........small scale stuff........a+b=C stuff.......with lots of a's & b's & c's.
The really hard stuff is identifying the relationship the parameters are interacting under in a more complex relationship.
where a,b,c,d,e,f,&g are involved.
it might be a+b giving more c
or a+d giving more f or a bunch of other possibilities.

So you can provide cogent scientific proof that a+b=C
and equally a+d = f.
So which relationship is actually functioning in the complex situation.

The modern way to try to easily sort this out is to throw a heap of data on a,b,c,d,e,f,&g into a computer & tell it to try different combinations until you get results that reasonably explain historical outcomes & say ..............this is the way it works & we humans are making lots of "c" & we are causing a problem.

Now,
a good correlation is if the input data
using the selected relationship explains 70% of the outcomes within +/- 2 standard deviations of the total predictions.

notice that 2 things are going on here
1. the operator is selecting the parameter relationships for the computer to use.
2.
the computer makes the calculations & predicts the results & gets it sort of right 70% of the time..........and this is supposedly good science in today's world.
The "sort of right" part is incestuous with the operator selected relationships for the computer to use because the qualifiction for 'sort of right' is +/- 2 standard deviations of the range of results predicted by the relationships chosen.

Its self satisfying in its acceptability criteria for the relationships chosen out of the possibilities ( that are known at the time).

The problem is that there is no proof that in a complex situation that the a+b=C part is what is actually happening. At the same time there are a heap of textbooks that will prove that when a&b are on their own they equal C.
The problem is that different levels of proof are required for a&b on their own & a&b being in the presence of more C as well as d,e,f,&g.

In those situations there is a high burden of proof required that the outcome is accurately predicted & within a narrow band of error.
Otherwise you must conclude that the relationship is in error & just guesswork as to what is actually happening when there are results that differ markedly between prediction & actual historical result.

I've seen hundreds of millions of dollars spent on controlling a,b,c,d,e,f,&g on the basis of a good correlation that was better than 70% predictive..........only to discover that the process outcome was out of control in real life.

I've also worked solo on research projects that was capable of predicting in real life a result which was accurate to within 2% ( which is less than the measurement errors in the inputs & outputs.

I've also critiqued Gov't computer models that were grossly in error ( despite their supposed proofs of the time in output ) & corrected them to everyone's satisfaction.

Oils ain't oils & proofs ain't proofs unless the outcome is accurately predicted by the model in real life.

The bottom line in all this is that in the global weather/ global environment model that
supposedly identified human CO2 emissions as the culprit............questions were asked about the proof of the relationships chosen to explain the model outcomes & a whole bunch of real life truth tests identified that based on historical evidence the model relationship was predicting wildly erroneous outcomes.

When these issues are raised the data goes missing.........so it can't be tested independently.

hell & damnation there is a bunch of incontrovertible proofs available of bits of the data like a&b in isolation equals C.
What do you believe , what do you take a punt on & feel you need to do something .........anything ........just in case.
Its a poor punt in valid scientific terms .
more proof is required before you start to try to control the situation.......or its 10 to 1 on .............that you will undergo pain & cost & achieve nothing.

feeling good about doing something/anything about this supposed problem is not the required outcome ..........the required outcome is doing something that will actually rectify the problem if its really a causative problem.
First:-
incontrovertibly prove cause & effect accurately
Then: you can weigh up the benefits of doing something about it if its causative , knowing the level of result you will get for the expenditure in pain & suffering.

If you can't show me where the water has gone in the supposed global icemelt from the global warming of the last 60 yrs of CO2 production from carbon emissions , you've shown me nothing at all but a flawed correlation.

One brick doesn't make a house ( nice solid brick tho it is ) a dozen of those nice solid bricks doesn't do it either........you need a bunch of them all of the right type in the right place or the house will fall over before its finished.
You've got a couple of solid bricks in your hand.........we need to see the nice solid house to prove the bricks will build it.

Have brick .....will make solid house ......is an invalid assumption.

I think this global warming thread has run its course .
There's a bunch of isolated data out there that has a basic level of logic & truth to it which you support.
equally there is a bunch of evidence out there that says its not showing what is actually happening, its failing the ultimate truth test.
in our individual perspectives we are both justified in our position..........its a poor punt spending money on trying to control what you think might be the cause based on the available evidence........that evidence is just not strong enough about cause........it doesn't even explain where all the water has gone or why there were cyclic global climate changes that occured a lot worse than the last 60 yrs , when there were bugger all humans & no cars, or coal mining or a bunch of other human activities.

Did I say the ABC was non-political? Having worked in newspapers for almost 40 years, I can tell you that basically it represents the views of the average journo without Rupert or some other plutocrat leaning on him. If you want right-wing stuff, try listening to 'Counterpoint' on RN on Friday afternoons.

But anyway, old boy, methinks you protest too much. To get back to the subject of this thread, I wonder if snow might actually be your job. My profile shows my home town and recreational interests - and several members of this forum know exactly who I am. Can you say the same?

My 'interest' in global warming, in the classical/legal sense, is no more and no less than four children and 1.5 grandchildren and their descendants. What's yours?

- Paul

no protesting , no snowing.

just trying to point out that a fact in one context can be ( often is )invalid in another context.
there's snowing going on when someone gets in the media & tries to justify a proposition with "facts" that are invalid in the context of the proposition.
I accept its hard for someone without the specific knowledge to identify where a "fact" is validly applicable.
Intuitive logic based on a supposed "fact" is not a good guide in physics.
ie this is how it works over here.........so it must work the same over there..........is a concept fraught with risk.
( about as risky as me taking your loads or you taking mine as facts that are applicable to our own rifles.)

The biggest snow job going around at the moment is gov't policy using irrelevant "facts" to try to justify taxes in the name of carbon reduction.
The truth test of that snowjob is that the money collected is not being devoted to carbon reduction ............huge chunks of it are earmarked for social objectives.
If the carbon problem was real Gov't would be using every penny they collect in the name of CO2 reduction , add a heap of extra money to it, and devote it to finding solutions. Instead they are misusing the funds for other purposes.................dead giveaway that the supposed problem is neither urgent nor real...........just another snowjob to gouge the public.


Thought I gave a pretty good idea of my job
- marine harvesting.
- just happens to be the most sensitive environment to climate change.
- handy to understand the climate trends so you can be a step ahead of them or at least in-tune.
- no point in following someone else's advice ..................if you are going to be successful you have to understand the environment, what its doing, what the animals are doing in response.
same basic deal as terrestrial hunting , except it harder to see the target & they have a much bigger paddock to run in.
a lot harder , actually , than finding & harvesting the wily sambar.

2 children, 3 grandchildren , but that's irrelevant , their generations have nothing to fear about global warming.

global warming will occur , its part of the physics of our solar system & an external influence on our planet & its environment.
we have another couple of thousand generations for the human race to sort out where our future lays, we haven't the technology or the tools to do anything about that one in our generation.

congrats , in advance, on the 0.5 g/c on the way.

Thanks for the good wishes on the coming GC, Denis.

What are your thoughts on sea acidification and the loss of coral, thought to be dangers of increased carbon dioxide?

As said, I am not a scientist but defer to the consensus of scientific opinion. According to a global-warming overview in 'The Age' today:
'A 2009 paper by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, of the University of Illinois, found 96 per cent of scientists agreed with the proposition that temperatures are rising and it is caused by human activity.'

I know the writer of the 'Age' article and he is sane to all appearances and a decent man as far as I know. The newspaper-page graphic is, of course, a joke. Check it out at:
http://www.theage.com.au/envir...-20110910-1k3cj.html

No problem with the 96% agreeing on climate changes.
Depends on which group of scientists you survey as to the what the results are about human causes.

The question about oceanic acidification is a good one.

The ocean has a huge capacity to sequester carbon.
again , it comes down to the multi-variable potential in the situation of that environment as to where the carbon goes :-
ie
- acidic compounds
or
- sequestered in organic growth.

The oceanic environment is so easy to sequester carbon into that the environmentalists have focussed on lobbying Gov't to not allow it.
its a lot faster & has far far higher holding capacity than growing trees & tree planting has a terrible dichotomy with choices for arable land & optimised terrestrial food sources for the human population.


Interesting......Hey.
The reason they don't want to allow it , is that its too easy & too cheap.......such a solution will not force consumpion change.
They want consumption change.


The sequestering mechanism there is that the oceanic environment is poor in nitrogen & iron to optimise organism growth & bio-resources throughout the entire trophic food chain.

The addition of iron & nitrogen to the oceanic environment promotes algae growth & population increase in algae feeders which sequesters carbon in them & increases forage to support species higher up the trophic foodchain.
In most cases the limiting factor for most oceanic species is food availability to support larger populations in a natural balanced ecosystem............not reproductive capacity/capability

There are a number of benefits in enrichment of the oceanic environment to support marine populations and enhance them as a source of human food.

As for coral growth
Its biggest threat in Oz is urban & rural run-off.

Its survivability from spawn is preferred temperature range in its environment & a suitable settlement habitat.
that temp range has shifted in its location over millennia & the fossil record shows it has coped successfully with far larger oceanic water height changes & oceanic conditions than man has experienced in his puny species lifetime.

Unfortunately man is making preferred choices in what they want to protect & their justification for those choices are often philosophical rather than factual within a balanced ecosystem.
protecting organisms that creates an unbalanced ecosystem in the trophic foodchain is a disaster, many don't have a grasp of within the complex ecosystem of the world's oceans.

It's a lot more complex there than with terrestrial animals where the trophic foodchain is typically quite short
vegetation- browsing animals- meat eaters
ie
This operates at different levels in the foodchain
vegetation - insects - insect predators - small meat eating predators - larger meat eating predators.

birds have a different foodchain & different predators

The horned browsers have typically the shortest foodchain
vegetation - browsers - predators ( some countries not having significant meat eating predators other than man )

even within the hunting community we make choices based on esoterics to influence future populations of the species we take.
- trophy hunters cull non-typical males & begrudge the hunting of does for meat.
- the meat hunter doesn't give a 'rats' about the horns, they want good eating meat.........He He.

Its not climate & its not carbon intriscally, but I'll toss you a curve ball.
Do you have any idea what influence humans in their lifestyle choices are having on the male populations of most species in the world exposed to rural & urban populations.
.........its in what we do with waste water & the choices we have in whats in it.

the birth control pill is very inefficient in its take-up in the human body, most of its estrogen hormone transports into the urine. small levels influence other animals in what they consume of it or live in it. To this we humans add a bunch of things which mimic hormones ( detergent is a high volume one & there are lots others)............doesn't affect the females i the long term greatly, but affects male reproductive capability as it affects sperm productivity & viability.
The human hormones are transgenetic .......they affect other animals.
He He we are even affecting ourselves in communities that rely on recycled water.
There's a good WHO study on what we are doing to ourselves.

So what do you think the downstream water is doing to animals & humans that drink it.
What do you think its doing to fish species in the rivers & when it gets in the ocean ( salt water does not neutralise it, but more exposure to near coastal species than highly migratory oceanic species).

Sydney alone puts 1.3 BILLION litres PER DAY of untreated waste water into the ocean
What does Melbourne do.

A good example of missused "facts" and cause & effect in esoteric human thinking was the recent debate about water treatment at Toowoomba Qld...........the population refused to allow tertiary treated waste water from their community to be put back into the dam with their drinking water ( despite technology being available to neutralise the hormone content.
........not that many of them thought about the hormone issue ........merely the esoterics of drinking recycled urine )
What do they want to continue to do
Why........put secondary treated water back into the river out of town for someone else downstream to drink it. Didn't give a 'rats' about their situation..........and not prepared to undertake the cost of properly tertiary treated waste water from their community to protect the animals & humans downstream.

No fingers pointed at any Toowoomba members of the forum..........just an example of facts not necessarily being the relevant facts in the media & people pushing particular views selecting the facts they want to use ( from all the available facts) to tell their story & justify their position.

So snowing is now "evidence" of "global warming"?!

Muzza, enjoy it while it happens. Next there will be a drought!

Pollution of all kinds are a danger, Denis, and the government spindoctors recognise this in using the term 'carbon pollution', even though methane is an even greater danger.

Even if I had the wit to discuss these matters scientifically, I don't have the time. I'm supposed to be painting the kitchen. (You don't have an environmentally responsible way of getting rid of roller wash, do you?)

John, analogous with the paradox of the kero fridge, yes, I understand global warming can bring snow. Without wasting more of my painting time researching the matter, I believe that changes to ocean currents caused by global warming could indeed freeze up the North Atlantic for some time, for instance, bringing snow. On another tack, my Geography teacher told us 40 years ago that in his native Minnesota it often got too cold to snow. Maybe, this will happen less often in the future.

But snow tends to come and go in the warming world. What we should be worried about is the progressive loss of the old snow-become-ice.
Cock an eye on this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...l/11/arctic-ice-free