Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

I did think about calling this thread 'Make up your damned minds'.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4880328.stm
Frankly I'm beginning to wonder if anyone knows anything...let alone everything.

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

The reason that this happens is that over the years the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air has amplified the temerature on the surface, the problem is that whilst creating all that carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels we also released tiny particles of dust and soot into the air, this helps to block the suns rays and balance it out a bit.

The problem we have now is because we are trying to clean things up a bit there is less soot and dust in the air, therefor there isnt as much dust to block out the suns rays and by cleaning up our air we are making it hotter becuase all that carbon dioxide is still there.

We still created the problem.

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

Who cares next week farting will be the cause....

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

I remember reading that there was a measurable effect attributed to the pollutants coming from China & being blown across the Philippines, if I come across it again, I'll post the link.

<edit> it was India & the Maldives :blush:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

- that article actually highlights the truth of Incog's 'make your mind up' point ;)

and not enough was made of "the trend has reversed during the past decade", in my opinion ;)

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

Without trying to appear smug, but that's been my argument all along, when I had these debates with Graham. My argument is that global warming is like a gun. We have enough intelligence to invent guns, but not use them responsibly. Likewise, we have enough intelligence to monitor and react to nature, but not enough to understand it. I like this graph a lot. What on earth were our ancestors upto causing that level of CO2 I don't know. Some might see a pattern in that graph. There are lots of contradictory graphs and such.

This issue isn't new though. I was actually going to bring this up. I have just finished Crichton's "State Of Fear" book, and this issue was mentioned in there, and I was getting around to righting a good review in that "What are you reading thread".

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

Could be carbon sinks letting out their supplies, interesting graph though.

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

I too have been sceptical..mainly because the present day theories are based on a small period of time in relation to the actual world history..For all we know this is a normal variation in a whole range of variations.The trouble is every scientist HAS to justify his/her pay and research money so they have to be drawing conclusions when maybe the time scale is too small.I think that we need to be seeing if the trends in the data continue or slow or increase over a truly more significent period of time.I think this planet has a lot more to teach us puny humans and find it staggering that anyone can claim to know what will happen next on such recent data.

Frankly people have been complaining about pollution since I was small and I can remember the truly terrible London smogs of the 50's.I just can't believe that sorting those out has made the environment worse???

Re: Air trends 'amplifying' warming
 

I forget which graph it is now, but when I did Geology the other year we discussed global warming and its all very interesting. Oxygen isotope stages, deep sea cores etc.

If I remember correctly, as time has gone on we have seen greater extremes For example the last glacial period was the coldest it had ever been and lasted longer (not sure about the longer bit).

Wish I had saved the geology notes now :)

Just found this below:
http://depts.washington.edu/uwpcc/im...ess_marine.gif