View Single Post
Old 09-22-07, 07:32 PM   #192
gordonmull
Lieutenant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Scotland
Posts: 269
Downloads: 20
Uploads: 0
Default

Well folks the Earth is warming, the sea is rising, the glaciers are melting. We have temperature records for the present and we have ice core records, tree rings, sea shells, seeds, spores and sediments for the past that all tell their paleoclimatic story. We have sea level monitoring stations which, albeit a new thing in a geological timescale, show a general rise since records did begin.

As to the weather? (I'm in Scotland) I've seen snow in June. A winter without a speck of the stuff on the mountains. Trees leafing in January. It does stuff like that. Weather is what you see today and climate is an average of weather over time. Don't worry about a mild winter because in a few years time you'll be freezing you b*lls off!

Interestingly enough, the Milankovitch cycles (which I won't go into in detail here but google them if you're interested) suggest that the Earth should in fact be going through a cooling phase just now - hence the ice age predictions in the in the latter part of last centuary.

Really I don't think that there is enough evidence to suggest that mankind is causing the effects we are seeing today. The IPPC's models aren't great and the system is too complex, eg a change in ocean currents can have a dramtic effect on climate but this system is poorly understood and seperate from the atmosphere where all the focus is.

Although the evidence for a human infuence is not complete it would be foolish to just dismiss it all. Better to be cautious and if it turns out wrong to say "Dam we were wrong" than to suffer the effects of a hostile environment.
gordonmull is offline   Reply With Quote