Erratic weather, shifted seasons - is this all down to global warming?

Correct - that one cricket match that was snowed off was in my hometown.

You go on to state that you are somehow more qualified to comment on global warming because you study this day in-day out.

Hallelujah. The answer to the question that scientists have been arguing for years - is global warming real? Well, thanks to one no-name nobody Scottish student on TSR, have the definitive answer. And how do we know? "Because I study this day in, day out.

Isn't it amazing how the watermelons ridicule anything they disagree with?

Considering he gave his opinion and you arrogantly patronised him, he gave you facts (assuming you bothered to read them) and you've insulted him, you're in no position to criticise. He's given you proof; where's your proof, where are your sources?

You only need to understand what global warming actually is to realise that you are talking a load of nonsense. The total heat content of the earth is still increasing which is deliberately ignored (or just not known) by people like yourself. If you look at surface temperature you only get half the picture, you need to look at the ocean as well. I suspect you don't mention that because it proves you wrong but then again maybe you just didn't know any of that.

You can only suggest global warming has stopped when the atmosphere and oceans have stopped warming. This hasn't happened so how can you suggest it has stopped?

You really do not have a clue what global warming is quite clearly. I study this day in, day out. You won't put your money where your mouth is and provide any evidenec to back up your claim that the oceans and atmosphere have both stopped warming which is very telling I think.

...address my point that there has been "no warming for quite a few years". This is in fact, 2012...

Bloody hell, seriously? I didn't think anybody had heard of Buxton, much less lived there. Hope it's still as pretty as it used to be. I'm assuming you're not old enough to have been living there in the '70s but, global warming or not, the climate does seem to have changed. 1975 was an exceptional year because, less than a week after the cricket match was snowed off (the last county match they ever tried playing there, if memory serves), it was absolutely baking hot, something that didn't happen often in Buxton. My point is that, back in the 70's we could expect snow any time between October and April every year with snow lying for weeks on end and with drifts 10 or 15 feet deep. That simply doesn't happen any more and even though I don't believe that the last year or two are indicative of anything significant, longer-term there are changes.

I disagree somewhat on that point and I think your argument would carry a lot more weight if you were able to get some rather basic points right. A lot of people fall back on the "it has changed before" argument without really thinking about what it tells us.

Known natural forcings alone cannot account for what we have observed since the industrial revolution. That isn't to say natural forcings don't have a significant impact because they do (they can cancel out or exacerbate anthropogenic forcings) but there has to be something else to account for what we see and anthropogenic forcings fit the puzzle very well as it were.

What past changes in climate can tell us is that what we are doing now is very likely to have an impact on the system rather than the other way around. Events that have resulted in increased amounts of carbon dioxide (and/or other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere have lead to significant shifts in the climate before and there isn't really anything to suggest that it doesn't play a significant role today. It is a little ironic that the evidence you use to support your point of veiw actually supports quite the opposite but this seems to be pretty common unfortunately.

i dont know about you but i dont think we have had a proper summer in the UK since 2006, when it was sunny and hot weather from around may through to september (how it should be). since then the seasons have shifted and weather is so erratic and volatile its unbelievable! currently we have snow, snowy showers and winter temperatures whereas less than a week ago, it was nice summer weather. this is all when it should be spring weather. since 2006, we seem to get hot weather between march and june (everyone is revising for exams or doing exams). then by july it turns to autumn weather just in time for the summer holiday. we seem to get a brief hot spell (lasting about a week or two) in early october then in recent years, we get heavy snow as early as november or as late as march.

is it all due to global warming? i heard before that the winds bringing hot air from the caribbean had shifted upwards in recent years but it would go back to normality soon and we would have summers as we used to. but that hasnt happened. are we destined for erratic weather and shifted seasons forever more?

The fact that we no longer get the snow that we did in the 70's is no evidence to support the theory of man-made global warming over any other theory that explains periods of warming [and cooling].

There are Vikings that were buried (interred) in the permafrost in Greenland.

The permafrost was not disturbed since it froze. It was not frozen when they were buried.

I would call that warmer then today, a lot warmer.

How does the evidence I used support my argument support the opposite when my argument was that the climate has changed regularly throughout history, which is what the diagram showed, seeing as it showed a regular pattern of peaks in temperature after a certain number of years?

I rather fear that I was reminiscing on a micro timescale while you were postulating on a macro one. My point was no more deep or meaningful than that I remember the ducks in the Pavilion Gardens looking particularly miffed when the pond froze over in June.

I am not questioning the fact that climate change cannot accurately be measured over a period of 30 or 40 years, just saying that winters in Buxton seemed a lot colder then than they do now. That's not a scientific observation, just a recollection of endless weeks of trudging to school through grey, frozen slush in bitter, icy winds under miserable, leaden skies.

Climate Research is done by people who regard themselves as mighty intellects who do research that no mortal can understand. This effort is led by hugely distinguished members of the scientific establishment. Groupthink prevails. The internal perception is that the practioners of this particular art are so brilliant that they can do anything in any subject better than anyone else.

They are of course true scientists and avoid being scrutinised at all costs. Anyone who is critical is immediately dismissed as not being a climate scientist.

And every time the model fails to predict reality, they come up with a new one that fails to predict reality.

All I'm asking you to do is post the evidence of recent warming in the past few years...

"Forcing" is a false parameter used in climate models to produce the required results.

As science is well aware that CO2 alone cannot cause dangerous warming, a forcing parameter had to be introduced.

Why? because if CO2 continues to rise at it's current rate of 2 parts per million each year, in fifty years it may cause a temperature increase of 0.6C, in 100 years it may reach 588ppmv and temperature may increase by 1.2C according to the Arrhenius supposition relating 0.6C of observed warming directly to a 100ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, (No it won't as the logarithmic properties of CO2 prohibit any such rise), but even if it did, still not a lot to worry about. So at this point reality goes out the window and a hypothesis is established.

(Remember also that there are only 388 molecules of CO2 for every million parts of atmosphere, so nomatter how one looks at the data, the outgoing long wave radiated photon has only a 388 in one million chance of being absorbed by a CO2 molecule).

The hypothesis says that CO2 is warmed by Long Wave radiation leaving the earth's surface and in turn returns some of this energy (heat) back to the surface causing yet more warming (the Greenhouse Effect). However as CO2 has to all intents and purposes reached it's maximum in it's ability to absorb radiation, any further increase in CO2 levels could only cause temperatures to increase by a few 10ths of 1C over the long term.

The forcing parameter is used in the models to show an interaction with other GHG's mainly water vapour, to give a doubling of the Greenhouse Effect. Without this "forcing" CO2 could have no effect whatsoever on temperatures.

Many reports show that these forcing "feedbacks" used in the models are complete nonsense, fine if you want to show warming, but bear no resemblance to reality.

Lindzen & Choi (2009) proves the effect of CO2 on temperature is trivial, the radiation escaping from the Earth to space as measured by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) Satellite, is NOT being trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere to cause warming to anything like the extent that the models predict.

How's that for real science?

You have yet to contradict the bit that you objected to in my post, the bit about recent warming. You could so easily do so by posting the figures.

I do not agree with the claimed 'consensus' - that being that climate change is driven by anthropogenic CO2, but for the purposes of this thread, my argument is simply thus - there has been no recent warming in recent years, and that it stopped some time ago. If you disagree, post the figures.

In fact, the whole reason why you cannot (or will not) do so is it will destroy a central tenet of the man made climate change theory. That being - an increase in CO2 results in warming, and since we have had an increase in CO2, there must have been warming.

Saying that CO2 causes global warming is akin to saying that lung cancer causes smoking.

It doesn't. The climate has changed throughout history with no help from man.

Man made CO2 induced climate change cannot explain periods of warming and cooling before the industrial revolution.

I think climate scientists are better placed to study climate than anybody else but maybe that idea is a bit too radical.

And every time the models are right once more, there is a strange silence from certain camps. Temperatures are well within what most models have predicted. Ocean heat content is too (above what a number of models predict though). Sea ice changes (which are actually going quicker than most models predict). A lot of the models out there are too conservative which is the big problem.

I think this paper is free for all to view but if it isn't drop me a PM and I will happily email it to you. They detail their method pretty well so although you'll no doubt crow at the use of the word estimate (anybody with a scientific background should understand why they are being so conservative) there is easily enough information in that for you to provide a more substancial rebuttal if you are able to do so. You could also take a look at the paper published by Foster and Rahmstorf last year which looks at the temperature anomaly.

I don't think you really know what a forcing is. 0.6K of warming can have far more of an effect than I think you realise as well.

You estimate of the probability is pretty much wrong (I don't have the exact figures involved to hand but you've worked it out in completely the wrong way). The mathematics involved is pretty complex. You need to know the absorption cross section and do some pretty nasty mathematics to be able to calculate the probability, not just take an overly simplistic approach as you have done. I can't really blame you for making this mistake though, it looks like it would be correct but sadly things aren't always as simple as they seem.

As I mentioned before, that is a lot more important than you make it out to be. I'll deal with climate sensitivity below.

The low estimates of climate sensitivity don't agree with paleoclimatic data or empirical observations sadly. The transition to an interglacial would never happen if the climate sensitivity is as low as some people suggest, something which is often overlooked. Conversely, it can't be too high otherwise past changes would have been far greater than they actually were. Somewhere around 2-3K is consistent with both empirical data and paleoclimatic data.

Their paper wasn't exactly foolproof, various people demonstrated a number of significant failings of the paper (see the rebuttal by Trenberth et al., 2010 for instance). The result obtained by their analysis varies quite dramatically dependent on the end point you chose. In the paper by Trenberth et al., they shift the endpoint by one month and found the relationship to be zero! That isn't indicative of a robust analysis I would suggest.

You might also want to consider this paper on the change in the Earth's energy balance when discussing the ERBE experiment.

See above. You've also yet to prove that no energy imbalance exists but I don't think you will regardless of how much cajoling you recieve because unfortunately for you that evidence doesn't exist.

Various paleoclimatic events tell us that an increase in carbon dioxide leads to warming, you'd have to deny the existence of the greenhouse effect to suggest otherwise. You also acknowledge there has been warming in various posts but obviously cause and effect need to be separated. This is where we obviously won't agree and as such I'm not going to labour the point. I would be interested to know what academic qualifications and/or relevant experience you have in climatology, if any.

i dont know about you but i dont think we have had a proper summer in the UK since 2006, when it was sunny and hot weather from around may through to september (how it should be). since then the seasons have shifted and weather is so erratic and volatile its unbelievable! currently we have snow, snowy showers and winter temperatures whereas less than a week ago, it was nice summer weather. this is all when it should be spring weather. since 2006, we seem to get hot weather between march and june (everyone is revising for exams or doing exams). then by july it turns to autumn weather just in time for the summer holiday. we seem to get a brief hot spell (lasting about a week or two) in early october then in recent years, we get heavy snow as early as november or as late as march.

is it all due to global warming? i heard before that the winds bringing hot air from the caribbean had shifted upwards in recent years but it would go back to normality soon and we would have summers as we used to. but that hasnt happened. are we destined for erratic weather and shifted seasons forever more?

I travelled 10 miles across fields of nettles on my knees for every shift.