Excessive Weather

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Is global warming a myth

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Excessive Weather

I know that this probably wont mean much to the chaps overseas but here in the North West UK we have been having a few problems.

The rain has had a huge impact in the Warrington area and caused flooding in quite a few local areas.

This the scene at Latchford Locks on the Manchester Ship Canal.

The water has completely overrun the locks…. the white bollard is usually 6 to 8ft above the waterline

Paul

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

This may add a little light to the proceedings…

**LINK**

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

As Dodgy points out the lack of efficient dredging could have played a significant part in this season of flooding especially in the Cumbrian areas.

As a developed society we have done our best to cover the ground with roads, buildings, massive carparks and even block paved driveways with the consequence that there is less open ground available to soak up rainfall.

So we try to alleviate the potential of flooding by building very expensive flood defence systems which are only partially successful, as I have witnessed myself in Warrington where the flood water has either gone over or around the brand new defences……sticking plasters spring to mind.

[Kev.WParticipant @kev-w]

If "Global warming" is a reality (as the government believes it is), then why did they stop dredging the annual build up of silt from the rivers & allow building on flood plains plus covering more greenfield with housing ?

I don't think the powers that be actually believe in "Global warming", they are just using it as an excuse to cover their 'penny pinching' mismanagement, of the systems that we had in place in previous years, to deal with these NATURAL weather patterns.

I'd like to see a survey done on how much the silt builds up on our rivers year by year, but I bet they wouldn't release that info, it would weaken their excuse to collect even more "Green" taxes.

Edited By Kip Woods on 27/12/2015 21:10:37

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

If "Global warming" is a reality (as the government believes it is), then why did they stop dredging the annual build up of silt from the rivers & allow building on flood plains plus covering more greenfield with housing ?

I don't think the powers that be actually believe in "Global warming", they are just using it as an excuse to cover their 'penny pinching' mismanagement, of the systems that we had in place in previous years, to deal with these NATURAL weather patterns.

It's worse than that.

The government is spending is actually spending a LOT of (our) money on wet-field sites and other conservation projects. But these must all abide by the European the European Water Framework Directive which aims at achieving ‘good ecological status’ for our national rivers. This is defined as being as close as possible to ‘undisturbed natural conditions’.

So all works aimed at improving water drainage – such as straightening and widening drainage channels – are being reversed. Because typical 'natural undisturbed conditions' near a river is a swamp. And that's what the Water Directive aims to turn Cumbria, Leeds, York and the Somerset Levels back into…

Flood defences are all very well, but such works are no longer allowed to interfere with the course of the river. When that proviso is enforced, barrier flood defences become much more expensive, and much less effective… 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 28/12/2015 12:06:55

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

One other point which is often overlooked is the result of the policy of 'saving water'. This is another EU directive, requiring the UK to cut water consumption per capita by 20%. The fact that water is an inexhaustible resource has been ignored, of course.

One of the results of this policy has been to suppress the building of reservoirs. Now, reservoirs, apart from providing drinking water in a drought, play an important part in hydrological control of a watershed. If a flood is developing, upstream reservoirs can be filled to take some of the pressure off the drainage system lower down, so the 'pulse' of water passing down the river is minimised.

No reservoirs means no evening out of the pulse, and consequent flooding. But never mind – that's environmentalism for you…

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I went and had a look at the River Ribble on Boxing Day at high tide. It is years since I last saw it like this. The lower path in the photograph is under about five feet of water! I have always doubted this Global Warming thing. What made the last ice age retreat (Smoke from camp fires? ). Things get photographed and reported much more easily these days. Just read an account of a Tsunami in the Far East in the 1870s where an estimated 25,000 lives were lost, and it was commented on in the most casual way by the ship's crew member who wrote abaout it, almost as it it hapenned from time to time and just had to be accpeted! When it comes to low-lying islands going under the sea, I have never heard of anyone suggesting that the sea might be at the same level, but the land itself sinking for a variety of reasons. I know some land is rising out of the sea quite rapidly (Anak Krakatoa, for instance), but no-one suggests the sea level is falling!

I do remember the River Ribble bursting its banks several times during my schooldays in the 1950s, but it was just accepted. The comments given above make more sense to me than "Global Warming!"

The river never goes as low as it did in the 50s, but I feel that is because dredging was halted when Preston Dock closed in the 80s.

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 30/12/2015 15:57:29

Edited By Bob Wilson on 30/12/2015 15:58:56

Edited By Bob Wilson on 30/12/2015 15:59:17

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Perhaps I should qualify my tongue in cheek comment about global warming

Global warming is a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate.

There is great debate among many people, and sometimes in the news, on whether global warming is real (some call it a hoax). But climate scientists looking at the data and facts agree the planet is warming. While many view the effects of global warming to be more substantial and more rapidly occurring than others do, the scientific consensus on climatic changes related to global warming is that the average temperature of the Earth has risen between 0.4 and 0.8 °C over the past 100 years.

The figures given for global warming are over and above the expected planetary temperature changes as the climate moves between periods of extreme cold due to the progression and regression of ice ages.

The increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing, agriculture, and other human activities, are believed to be the primary sources of the global warming that has occurred over the past 50 years.

Changes resulting from global warming will include rising sea levels due to the melting of the polar ice caps, as well as an increase in occurrence and severity of storms and other severe weather events.

The current adverse weather in the Northwest can not be attributed to global warming as the historical record over the past few hundred years shows such flooding has happened before and will no doubt happen again, the difference now is the increase in building on floodplains and the lack of river management.

Paul

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

As the volume of water increases when it freezes, I would have thought that if the icecaps melt, the sea levels will either stay the same or drop. The ice underwater would take up much less space when melted, to be replaced with the melted ice that was above the surface! Overall level maintained.

If the the human race is causing global warming by production of "greenhouse gasses", it is just "hard cheese" because nothing significant will be done to reduce it. Air travel is increasing all the time and they still want an extra runway at Heathrow. Whilst developing nations are polluting more and more. Even the sea itself is in a mess with pollution. Just having their conference must have produced a lot with them all flying to it. No reason at all why they could not have had a conference via satellite link! Very few will want to get rid of their cars to reduce emmissions either. Not many will forego their foreign holidays. Personally, I hate flying, and my first rule is that I will avoid it whenever possible, and if I can't avoid it, someone else must pay the fare. My last flight was in 1987, and now I am retired, I will never fly again! I wish air travel had never been invented!

But what I can guarantee, is that the planet will be fine. Doesn't matter how much we pollute it, once the human race has gone, it will recover in two or three hundred years, and it will be like we were never there in the first place. If they carry on polluting everything from the atmosphere to food, soil and medicines, it is the human race itself that will pay the ulitimate price. But the Earth itself will soon heal up once we have rubbed ourselves out!

Bob

PS.   The editing was just to correct spelling mistakes!

 

 

Edited By Bob Wilson on 30/12/2015 19:11:57

Edited By Bob Wilson on 30/12/2015 19:13:55

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

I think you would find flying a lot different these days Bob.

It's far worse!

Colin

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hello Bob

Whilst your first comments about sea levels are somewhat speculative I do agree with everything else that you have said, the human race is continuing to screw up the environment but ultimately the planet will always survive.

I just wish that the politicians would stop trying to score cheap points off each other and actually do something about it.

Paul

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Colin,

I can honestly say that I have never been as uncomfortable at sea as in aircraft on long flights (Liverpool to the Phillippines was the worst – 26 hours!). Best flight I made was in an RAF Hercules from Brize Norton to Ascension Island. Because it was military, they just shoved us all in round the edges of the cargo and luggage that was piled up in the centre and left us to it. I climbed on top of the luggage, stretched out flat and spent a reasonably comfortable flight. It was extremely noisy though, but I had got a pair of ear defenders specially for the flight, so wasn't too bothered by it! I had a freebie in a helicpoter from Cape Town to land on the Esso Atlantic for a crew change with the ship underway – quite enjoyed that. I was just there for the ride. Got hoisted off the RMS St. Helena on a wire by a Wessex when going on leave. That was fun as it was only for a few minutes. Also had a jolly in the ship's helicopter on our way to the Falklands in 1982. That was also a great ride. But I can never forgive air travel for driving passenger liners off the seas. Thank goodness that St. Helena Island had no airport, and I was able to hang on in the last fixed run passenger liner to see my sea time out. They have now built an airport and the ship will be withdrawn when it opens in about July!

Paul,

I speak with a mind "unclouded by fact! But I wonder why no-one ever suggests that the land may be sinking, rather than the sea is rising. In 20 years sailing to St. Helena in the South Atlantic, the sea level never changed. There are no tides there, and the level was always about two feet below the landing steps.

My "unclouded" mind indicates to me that if an iceberg is nine tenths below water, it displaces a very large volume, and if it melts, the volume of displacement shrinks, but the melting of the one tenth above water does not make up for the previously frozen displacement!

Maybe I am right, maybe I am wrong, but for a long time, it was thought that electricity flowed from positive to negative, until they discovered that it was actually from negative to positive!

Bob

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

@Paul T

But climate scientists looking at the data and facts agree the planet is warming….The figures given for global warming are over and above the expected planetary temperature changes as the climate moves between periods of extreme cold due to the progression and regression of ice ages…

The planet is warming. It has been warming since 1850 – the end of the Little Ice Age. Recent warming has not been as fast as some earlier warming – that between 1920-1950, for instance. And several earlier perioda, the Minoan, Roman and Mediaeval warm periods, for instance, were considerably warmer than today. See **LINK**

Recent warming is a strange beast. Though we have continued to put out lots of CO2, the planet stopped warming around 19 years ago, and since then it has been cooling slightly. See **LINK**

You will note that this is a satellite data set (RSS). The ground data sets, which are looked after by the climate scientists, do show a modest warming over this period, though not as much as their theory would suggest. Why is this? Well, if you ask to check their data you will not be given the raw information. Instead, you will be given a set of 'adjusted' figures. And the reason for these 'adjustments' is never comprehensively explained. However, if you look at the effect of the adjustments, by comparing them with historical data, you will see a funny thing. Data since the 1970s is invariably adjusted DOWNWARDS, while data since then is invariably adjusted UPWARDS, giving a scary temperature rise. This fact was noted at a recent senate hearing – link below – since it looks remarkably like fraud. **LINK**

I note that you make the interesting point that the Earth is warming 'more than expected'. This is news to me – as far as I know there is no clear agreement amongst climate scientists how warm the Earth should be, or how rapidly it should change. However, I have good news for you – if you (or anyone else) can show that the Earth is warming in an unusual fashion, there is a $100,000 prize waiting for you – see here http://www.informath.org/Contest1000.htm

It is interesting to note that no climate scientists has yet been able to claim it.

You might also be interested in looking at Lord Donoughue's series of questions to the Met Office in the Lords over the last year. By my count it took him 6 submissions of the same question to get a grudging agreement from the Met Office that they were unable to find a 'Global Warming' signal in their statistical analysis of global temperature.

Embarrassment is now a daily problem for those who support the 'Global Warming' theory, against all the evidence.  Here is an interesting moment as the Chair of the US Senate Environment and Public Works committee questions the Chairman of the Sierra Club – an activist group supporting Climate Change theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl9-tY1oZNw

It seems fairly obvious to me that the Global Warming theory is completely scientifically disproven. The predicted tropospheric hot-spot, for instance, has never been found. Any yet there is so much money and prestige riding on the theory that nobody can stop the bandwagon. Even when it results in trillions of wasted dollars, and deaths due to inaccurate long-term weather predictions. And people losing their jobs when they dare to say what I've just said, such as Philippe Verdier, who was France's 'Mr Weather'… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11931645/Frances-top-weatherman-sparks-storm-over-book-questioning-climate-change.html

 

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 30/12/2015 21:52:21

Edited By Dodgy Geezer on 30/12/2015 21:52:59

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

It is an interesting subject and I do agree that there are probably too many people with axes to grind.

Toxic emissions from human activity are obviously undesirable and should be curbed as far as reasonably possible but they may fall into insignificance compared with the effect of natural phenomena. For example, how many car emissions equate to a major volcanic eruption?

Also, as said in an earlier post, we live in an information age, so events which might previously have only been known locally are now broadcast worldwide. There is indicative evidence that the collapse of the Bronze Age civilisations in around 1170 BC might have been due to climate change but at the moment no one knows for sure.

It is also a matter of scale. The average person considers a lifetime to be a long period but it is nothing of the sort when it comes to climatic changes so to say that 'these are the worst floods for 100 years' is essentially meaningless, the baseline is far too short to draw long term conclusions. You need to look for patterns over thousands of years at least.

There are all sorts of long term (by human standards) influences on weather, sea levels, land levels and other physical manifestations. Some may be due to the characteristics or motion of the Earth itself, others to Solar variations.

Sea levels do rise and fall over long time periods, often dramatically. The Mediterranean Basin was dry at one time and the Black Sea was a lake well below global sea level until rising sea levels broke through at the Bosphorus, drowning many of the lakeside settlements. The North Sea was once 'Doggerland' and settled by humans too and not so long ago at that. Fishermen frequently bring up ancient artifacts in their nets.

Earthquakes and tectonic movements can raise or lower sea levels and also obliterate signs of ancient human occupation. The Lycian coast of Turkey has partially submerged cities while the Argolid in Greece, not all that far away, has more land than it had at the time of the Trojan War when the citadel of Tiryns was virtually on the coast – it is now a couple of miles inland. A whole Egyptian city is presently being excavated from under the sea at Aboukir Bay.

Given this sort of background, it is almost presumptuous to credit the human race with more than a relatively marginal impact on these long term effects. If the Yellowstone super volcano were to blow, as it is apparently overdue in doing so, then all the other human effects on global warming would be consigned to a historical footnote – assuming that there remains any history to be noted!

Colin

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

If it's global warming that's stopping the Humbrol enamel on the seat mouldings for my latest model from drying within 6 hours then I don't approve of it. Will someone please have it stopped?

DM

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

Posted by Dave Milbourn on 30/12/2015 23:25:33:

If it's global warming that's stopping the Humbrol enamel on the seat mouldings for my latest model from drying within 6 hours then I don't approve of it. Will someone please have it stopped?

DM

Ah, Dave – it'll be all right. We can use climate science.

If I can get a grant to do a few adjustments, I think you'll find that the paint is really drying in 5 minutes….

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Blimey, D-G – it's worked! After I posted my complaint I went to bed, but I've just checked the paint and it's dry. Many thanks.

DM

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Bob

Thank you for bringing back memories of noisy (and cold) flying in a Fat Albert.

Instead of thinking about the water locked up in icebergs or sea ice try thinking about the 5,773,000 cubic miles of water that is locked up in the permanent ice pack, glaciers and permanent snow. If all of this ice melted global sea levels would rise by 216ft…..or alternatively the land will sink by 216ft.

Dodgy

I really would love to argue the point but I am conscious that Colin has commented that there are to many people with axes to grind, and I do love to grind axes, so perhaps this forum isn't the place to exercise our views however I am very impressed with the amount of detailed information that you have submitted and I applaud your obvious passion for this subject.

DM

Thank you for bringing me back down to earth.

Paul

[CookieOldParticipant @cookieold]

Hi Paul , I hope you are right ,

Best Regards Dave

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

It will never melt though, will it? Too cold at the top and bottom of Earth! If some external force does make it melt, I feel that most life on Earth will have been completely wiped out long before that happened! Apart from the fish, of course! I have seen the North Pole though. Was passing over it in airliner, and the captain put out a broadcast that the sky was so clear, that the ice was visible. I was quite surprised that I appeared to be the only one sufficiently interested to have a look! That was Anchorage, Alaska to Paris, over the top!

Bob

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

One of my local drinking buddies has his own view of global warming (please excuse the dialect) –

"Ah din't do owt ter start it; ay 'ant dun owt much to mek it wuss, and ah can't do nowt ter stop it nah – ser gerrem innergen,sirrah".

BTW Greenland really is green – and so is the ice when viewed from 35,000 ft (or it was in 1982). Stunning.

Paul

You're welcome, m'duck.

HNY everyone.

DM

[Paul TParticipant @pault84577]

Hi Dave

Happy New Year, m'duck

Your mate is right as it is far to late for us to do anything significant about it, we are at what is euphemistically a tipping point and even the complete abstinence from burning fossil fuels will only slow down the inevitable. The much heralded climate agreement is a bit like using the pumps on the Titanic …..far to little and far to late.

Paul

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

In the 50's it was The Bomb……**LINK**

It's being so cheerful as keeps us goin', intit?

DM

[Dodgy Geezer 1Participant @dodgygeezer1]

Posted by Paul T on 01/01/2016 12:02:57:

we are at what is euphemistically a tipping point and even the complete abstinence from burning fossil fuels will only slow down the inevitable….

Paul

Relax, Paul!

The 'tipping point' is only an activist claim – it's just an ill-defined buzz word put out to frighten people. Even the IPCC, who are the exaggerators-in-chief, could only manage the following statement in their last report:

"The IPCC AR5 report stated with medium confidence that precise levels of climate change sufficient to trigger a tipping point, defined as a threshold for abrupt and irreversible change, remain uncertain,…" (wiki)

In other words, "We have looked for evidence that a particular temperature is a critical one, and we haven't found any".

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