Global Warming

well there won't be any global warming to worry about, now - we've got a carbon tax to fix that up.

Interesting post. I have never heard weather forecasters make such claims for themsellves. Sounds more like the kind of statement made about scientists by those who wish to avoid the hard truths science sometimes gives. Scientific forecasters are more likely to give forecasts in terms of % probability of their forecasts. The fact that weather is variable isn't the same as unpredictable. Personally, I find weather forecasts to be astonishingly accurate. Certainly much more accurate than they were fifty years ago.
In Australia, forecasters have a more difficult job as we don't have anything like the number and density of stations feeding back data that they have in many other parts of the world.

Yep, given the complexity of the systems involved and the speed with which they can change, professional meteorologists and forecasters do an incredibly good job. In my experience they get forecasts right most of the time within any 12 hour or so interval. If you make the effort to get the latest info you'll invariably have little to whinge about in regard to their accuracy. Lots of good sites around:

Weatherzone
Seabreeze
Aus Weather Forum

and BoM of course.

Not sure what your on about????
They accurately predicted the temperature and the storms. The forecasts are pretty much spot on all the time And there seasonal forecasts are also excellent
As an example they predicted this years drought in the sw over winter 3 months before it happened.
If your not actually going to study thier forecasts before comparing it to the weather maybe you shouldn't be so quick to bag them

Not in the oceans it doesn't find its own level. All kinds of things like tides and currents/ earth movements (and all these keep changing) act on ocean levels. This is why it is actuallly quite difficult to measure changes in ocean depth. While theoretically global warming tells us ocean depth is increasing, it wasn't able to be proven until earlier this year.

mfewster,

Can you provide a link for that?

One of the only reliable source in the southern hemisphere of sea level change (due to continental shifts) is supposed to be Fort Denison, Sydney Harbour. As this is the only place in the world where there has been a constant seal level measurement made since the early 1900's.

All other locations are subjected to earth plate movements, (well documented) which see's the Himilaya's still rising every year and places such as Hawaii, New Zealand getting taller, and East Anglia in the UK sinking much like parts of Holland and the mouth of the Rhine.

Fort Denison, is unique in that it is on base rock in a stable environment with a continental shelf that extend out from Australia minimising the effects of tidal fluctuation and sea movements.



My source is from Environment NSW Environmental documentation

and

Power point of the history of the importance of water level monitoring at Fort Denison


Thanks

I note that last week new measurements of sea level rise have been made with unparalleled accuracy from coordinating a number of satellites to rule out some variables.

apparently 11mm since 1992 and rising- this is a massive amount.

You may have to get a snorkel whether you like it or not :)

Cheers
Greg

Hello Tony V. Robin Miller beat me to it. We are both referring to the same report that was published in scientific circles last week and briefly covered in the press. As you say, plate movements are one of several factors the factors that have made getting an actual measurement to support the theory very difficult. I'll try to find the actual report for you and post it back here. The real story however last week was the news that the permafrost is now melting. This is a much more serious event and it kind of took over the headlines. Interesting that the permafrost news is right on target with the predictions of the scientists who first drew attention to global warming.

Tony V
The following link will enable you to follow up the actual report if you wish.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/sea-levels-rising-faster-projected-201440601.html

Robin, mfewster,

Thanks for the replies and links,

The issue with satellite measurements is the relatively short time period of measurements, to even out plate movements, earths rotational proximity to the sun, this is always an issue with any new technology.

I try and keep an open mind about these things, proof or fact is a million times better than modelling, a scientific word for conjecture :)

The permafrost is always a worry... and according to NASA the worst and highest temperature was 2007, the temperature is colder at the poles seasonally but the damage to the ice thickness in 2007 causes a continuing summer shrinkage until the ice thickens (several years).

What I always get suspicious about is experts claiming the human or manmade influences for the cause.

I do not doubt climate change... I do doubt the real influencers, even without humans in this planet, there was climate change and always will be climate change.

What I do have issues with is the multimillion dollar grants to prove one way or the other, but not how to adapt to the inevitable climate change.
The Dutch built dykes over a 100 years ago to hold back the higher seas, London has flood gates, they know that London is sinking, its natural.

What are we doing, taxing people..!!!

Dismount soap box....

Hello Tony
It is true that we have always had and always will have climate change. The problem is that we have a quite good idea of what causes these natural cycles and what we have seen in the last 100 years, and the last 50 years in particular, doesn't fit the patterns and what we know of the causes of these patterns. It is far faster than previous cycles and only comparable to what are known as "impact events". When these happened in the past there were massive changes to what could and couldn't live on the Earth, but this isn't an impact event.
While humans are puny compared to the forces of nature, in some respects we are not puny. We have released (and continue to release) vast quantities of energy into the Earth's ecosystem. We have unlocked the energy in fossil fuels that took multi millions of years to accumulate and we have done this in a very short space of time. The problem with the permafrost melting is that one it starts to melt it will release methane on a scale that will dwarf the emissions humans cause and nothing we can do will then reverse the trend. The consequences of that are very frightening indeed. I'd reckon it is worth spending the $ and doing the science. But are we prepared to listen and change? 10 years ago the modelling said change was possible if we acted fast enough, before the permafrost began to melt.
If anyone is to blame, I'd blame the Murdoch Press that has conducted a world wide campaign in all their media outlets to muddy the debate.

Ahh yes, Sorry I forgot about that.

That explains it with 100% scientific proof now.

The thing about a government is that if they take money off you then in theory they actually give it back to the community in some way or other....they don't keep it and get rich themselves. Gillard's or whoevers salary doesn't change and their salary is very small by corporate standards. So really they are Robin Hood aren't they? Hospitals, schools, pensions and much more are all paid for by taxes. Undesirable things like smoking or excess energy use should be taxed heavily to discourage them and the money collected channelled into good things. Polititions don't get rich unless they are American Republicans...err.....I mean corrupt.

The subject is global warming, I beleve that the tax is to stop it.
Giving money to people is not going to stop global warming.

We have had global warming sence the ice age finished. The glacers have been receiding a long time prior to the Al Gores of this world inventing the word "global warming", no cars ,planes etc then.

We are paying tax, in other countries it`s full steam ahead.

Leading up to the Olympic games in China, factories were closed to stop pollution and the price of farm chemicals went sky high. After the games the price offarm chemicles droped by half, due to the factories reopening .

Australia having a carbon tax is doing nothing but leaving us with less in our pockets.

The tax is not to stop global warming. One of the great trick arguments beloved of the shockjocks and the Murdoch press is to ask "How much will this drop temperatures by? " And the correct answer is "Nothing at all." All it can do is slow the rate of rise. Unfortunately, we should have all done this around 15 years ago. But the deniers cost us dearly back then. Once the permafrost begins to melt, the consequences of this will swamp our fossil fuel output and will grow every year at a greater rate than our fossil fuel usage. And last week the data came in that showed the permafrost is melting.
It isn't trues that in other countries it is "full steam ahead" however. Just about every country (including China) has taken on a range of measures.
The less in our pockets from the carbon tax is going to be very small beer indeed compared to costs that are yet to come.

Sorry Phillipn but you're wrong on at least three counts. Many other countries have carbon taxes and as has already been pointed out the carbon tax is as much about making alternative energy sources competitive and efficient energy use a reality as it is about trying to reduce our contribution to global warming. The tax is a long way from "doing nothing" as you suggest (for example electricity generation from coal-fired sources has already dropped, in part due to the tax). Global warming and the carbon tax are complex issues and there's lots of information about if you really want to inform yourself.


Your comment about the glaciers receding for a long period of time is correct, although I'm not sure what we are supposed to conclude from your observation. Glaciers have been in decline for eons - pretty much since the last major ice age with a few periods of growth interspersed - but the rate of their retreat has been rapidly accelerating in the last 30 years in line with global warming and increasing greenhouse gases. And that is simply a measured fact.

Yep, Bazooka is right. We have had a slow warming since the ice ages as we have had relatively slow warmings and coolings previously. It is the rate of what is currently happening that is the problem.Previously they pretty well matched the cycles of sunspot activity. What is happening now seems to be quite different and outside the suns[pot cycle variance. It is however almost precisely consistent with the modelling done on the effects of changes in the Earth's atmosphere gasses. Unfortunately, as more and more data is added, the modelling is getting better but still giving the same results and it is now happening faster than the original global warming estimates predicted.
Very scary stuff. Kind of reminds me of the run up to WW2 when few would listen to Churchill re the threat of war (mainly because they didn't want to pay taxes to rearm).