Martin Rowley wrote:

> ... BBC2 2100-2200, first of three programmes; not sure if it's any
> good (or more importantly, balanced), but according to Radio Times, it
> does investigate the 'Ice Age cometh' scare that we lived through in
> the 1970s.
> 

What disappointed me was that he seemed to say that we had cooling in the
50s and 60s so someone came up with the new "ice age" theory and then we
had warming in the 70s so someone else came up with the global warming
theory. 

I wish he could have got his history right. It was before the warming of the
late 70s - which wasn't noticed until the 80s - that scientists were
warning of the threat of global warming due to increased CO2. And how can
anyone cover this subject without mentioning Arhennius?


-- 
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK.  E-mail: newsman not newsboy

On Sep 8, 7:37 am, Graham P Davis  wrote:
> Martin Rowley wrote:
> > ... BBC2 2100-2200, first of three programmes; not sure if it's any
> > good (or more importantly, balanced), but according to Radio Times, it
> > does investigate the 'Ice Age cometh' scare that we lived through in
> > the 1970s.
>
> What disappointed me was that he seemed to say that we had cooling in the
> 50s and 60s so someone came up with the new "ice age" theory and then we
> had warming in the 70s so someone else came up with the global warming
> theory.
>
> I wish he could have got his history right. It was before the warming of the
> late 70s - which wasn't noticed until the 80s - that scientists were
> warning of the threat of global warming due to increased CO2. And how can
> anyone cover this subject without mentioning Arhennius?
>
> --
> Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK.  E-mail: newsman not newsboy

I missed the broadcast.  Does anyone know when it will be repeated?
The BBC website is useless! Searching for Climate Wars brings up a
2004 radio program, and when I did get the correct web page, all it
had was the time of the next program..

Cheers, Alastair.

On Sep 10, 12:01 pm, Alastair  wrote:
> On Sep 8, 7:37 am, Graham P Davis  wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Martin Rowley wrote:
> > > ... BBC2 2100-2200, first of three programmes; not sure if it's any
> > > good (or more importantly, balanced), but according to Radio Times, it
> > > does investigate the 'Ice Age cometh' scare that we lived through in
> > > the 1970s.
>
> > What disappointed me was that he seemed to say that we had cooling in the
> > 50s and 60s so someone came up with the new "ice age" theory and then we
> > had warming in the 70s so someone else came up with the global warming
> > theory.
>
> > I wish he could have got his history right. It was before the warming of the
> > late 70s - which wasn't noticed until the 80s - that scientists were
> > warning of the threat of global warming due to increased CO2. And how can
> > anyone cover this subject without mentioning Arhennius?
>
> > --
> > Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK.  E-mail: newsman not newsboy
>
> I missed the broadcast.  Does anyone know when it will be repeated?
> The BBC website is useless! Searching for Climate Wars brings up a
> 2004 radio program, and when I did get the correct web page, all it
> had was the time of the next program..
>
> Cheers, Alastair.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

It's on BBC iplayer, Alistair. Download the iplayer, then it is listed
under "Earth"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dhlgl/

Cheers, Paul

"Alastair" wrote...
> I missed the broadcast.  Does anyone know when it will be repeated?

... From 'Radio Times': Sunday 14th September, 1645-1745, BBC2.

Martin.



-- 
Martin Rowley
West Moors, East Dorset (UK): 17m (56ft) amsl
Lat: 50.82N   Long: 01.88W
NGR: SU 082 023

On Sep 10, 4:51 pm, "Martin Rowley"
 wrote:
> "Alastair" wrote...
>
> > I missed the broadcast.  Does anyone know when it will be repeated?
>
> ... From 'Radio Times': Sunday 14th September, 1645-1745, BBC2.

When it hits the other "digi" channels, it will be on about 5 times in
6 months. Or is that 10 times in 5 months?

Nothing against the presenter though, he's as good as they come. Not
that that is a particularly high esteem on the BBC. However if it
includes all categories, then it is.

Is it balanced? There is a massive environmental problem but getting
anyone who counts to look a little deeper than the atmosphere is
criminally difficult.

On Sep 10, 5:52 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
> On Sep 10, 4:51 pm, "Martin Rowley"
>
>  wrote:
> > "Alastair" wrote...
>
> > > I missed the broadcast.  Does anyone know when it will be repeated?
>
> > ... From 'Radio Times': Sunday 14th September, 1645-1745, BBC2.
>
> When it hits the other "digi" channels, it will be on about 5 times in
> 6 months. Or is that 10 times in 5 months?
>
> Nothing against the presenter though, he's as good as they come. Not
> that that is a particularly high esteem on the BBC. However if it
> includes all categories, then it is.
>
> Is it balanced? There is a massive environmental problem but getting
> anyone who counts to look a little deeper than the atmosphere is
> criminally difficult.

Thanks  Martin.  I was too late to get a Radio Times this week but I
thought it would be repeated.

Thanks Paul.  I watched it on the I-player.  As usual Iain Stewart was
entertaining and well informed.

I suspect the bias towards US scientists was because they hope to sell
the series there.  But that is where the politicians have been most
(in)active.

Of course, the amateur British climatologist G.S. Callendar had
already spotted that the climate was warming and CO2 rising in 1938.
Charles Keeling's professor, Revelle, had shown that the oceans would
not act as a sink for anthropogenic CO2 as had been expected, so
global warming did not really start with him.

A second point is that abrupt climate change had already been
discovered in 1970 by G. Russell Coope, a British earth scientist, who
had used fossil beetles to show that the climate in the UK had
switched from temperate to polar, and again from polar to temperate in
periods of less than 40 years.  His, and other evidence, helped cause
the panic about a new ice age, since it would have started abruptly.
These abrupt changes were only confirmed when the Camp Century cores
became available, and now we suspect they can happen in as short a
period as three years.

What Stewart did miss, as does every one else, is that when abrupt
climate change was proved, they did not change the computer models.
They are still using models which cannot reproduce rapid change.
Models which they proudly boast give similar results to those of
Arrhenius in 1898.   His methods were shown to be wrong by Karl
Angstrom. Moreover his calculations were based on CO2 absorption in
the near infrared, but the greenhouse effect is in the mid infrared.

As explained at RealClimate the current models don't work -
"The simplest approach to calculating the Earth's surface temperature
would be to treat the atmosphere as a single uniform slab, like a pane
of glass suspended above the surface (much as we see in elementary
explanations of the "greenhouse" effect). But the equations do not
yield a number for global warming that is even remotely plausible."
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/simple-question-simple-answer-no

It is easy to see why.  Iain Stewart demonstrated the greenhouse
effect with a cylinder of gas without glass at either end.  It is the
CO2 gas which absorbs the radiation, not the glass.  The greenhouse
effect  warms the air at the base of the atmosphere, not high in the
troposphere as the modelers will tell you.  That is why the satellite
(and radiosonde) data does not agree with the models.  The models are
wrong.

While the scientists are spending £4,000,000,000 investigating what
happened one second into the Big Bang, an amateur scientist like me
can produce the answer to a problem that IS important for human
civilization for free!

Cheers, Alastair.

On Sep 10, 9:02 pm, Alastair  wrote:
> On Sep 10, 5:52 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 10, 4:51 pm, "Martin Rowley"
>
> >  wrote:
> > > "Alastair" wrote...
>
> > > > I missed the broadcast.  Does anyone know when it will be repeated?
>
> > > ... From 'Radio Times': Sunday 14th September, 1645-1745, BBC2.
>
> > When it hits the other "digi" channels, it will be on about 5 times in
> > 6 months. Or is that 10 times in 5 months?
>
> > Nothing against the presenter though, he's as good as they come. Not
> > that that is a particularly high esteem on the BBC. However if it
> > includes all categories, then it is.
>
> > Is it balanced? There is a massive environmental problem but getting
> > anyone who counts to look a little deeper than the atmosphere is
> > criminally difficult.
>
> Thanks  Martin.  I was too late to get a Radio Times this week but I
> thought it would be repeated.
>
> Thanks Paul.  I watched it on the I-player.  As usual Iain Stewart was
> entertaining and well informed.

Thanks Alastair, no problem.

> Of course, the amateur British climatologist G.S. Callendar had
> already spotted that the climate was warming and CO2 rising in 1938.
> Charles Keeling's professor, Revelle, had shown that the oceans would
> not act as a sink for anthropogenic CO2 as had been expected, so
> global warming did not really start with him.

Who was the one who mooted that the dispersal of iron ore in the
middle of the oceans could produce an ice age.

> "The simplest approach to calculating the Earth's surface temperature
> would be to treat the atmosphere as a single uniform slab, like a pane
> of glass suspended above the surface (much as we see in elementary
> explanations of the "greenhouse" effect). But the equations do not
> yield a number for global warming that is even remotely plausible."http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/simple-question...
>
> It is easy to see why.  Iain Stewart demonstrated the greenhouse
> effect with a cylinder of gas without glass at either end.  It is the
> CO2 gas which absorbs the radiation, not the glass.  The greenhouse
> effect  warms the air at the base of the atmosphere, not high in the
> troposphere as the modelers will tell you.  That is why the satellite
> (and radiosonde) data does not agree with the models.  The models are
> wrong.

Would a 30 " layer of lead or mercury still be transparent I wonder?

> While the scientists are spending £4,000,000,000 investigating what
> happened one second into the Big Bang, an amateur scientist like me
> can produce the answer to a problem that IS important for human
> civilization for free!

And you can get it wrong, like them.

(When you are spending money on that scale it is best viewed as
something to do with public works. It's only a quid for every 12 or so
people. Granted it would feed and water several that are now going to
die.

But who cares about some brown skinned people in a distant country?)

Hot air rises and taking the heat with it, disposes of it from whence
it came. Star light goes to the stars. It may be the reasson why the
heavens are predominantly black.

The real bad effect is on the subterranean interface where untold
damage to the as yet unexplored ecosystems there can reach the
irreversible in unknown timeframes.

Or not as the case may be.

As with the Romans and Egypt, the removal of trees unassuaged, will
cause expansion of deserts.

(The local population has to become itinerant as they turn to strip
grazing to make a living and the Sahel expands and contracts according
to the seasons, their bounty and the number of camels and goats that
survived from the last drought.)

Just because we think of the tropics as lush, it doesn't follow that
they can't be damaged beyond easy recovery.

It has only recently been discovered that some of the trees there,
assumed to be rapid growing, are in fact very slow to produce mature
specimens.

How much more so when the necessary fungi and above ground flora and
fauna have been eradicated to grow beans for 2 or 3 years?

That is in a region that could always use a little more carbon
dioxide.

On Sep 10, 10:25 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:

> And you can get it wrong, like them.

But Higgs is probably correct about his bosom, as I am with my Tiamat
Hypothesis :-)

Cheers, Alastair.

On Sep 11, 4:13 am, Alastair  wrote:
> On Sep 10, 10:25 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
>
> > And you can get it wrong, like them.
>
> But Higgs is probably correct about his bosom, as I am with my Tiamat
> Hypothesis :-)

What is the Tiamat Hypothesis?

If it merely concerns atmospherics, it isn't durable enough to have
long term effects.

Alastair wrote:

> A second point is that abrupt climate change had already been
> discovered in 1970 by G. Russell Coope, a British earth scientist, who
> had used fossil beetles to show that the climate in the UK had
> switched from temperate to polar, and again from polar to temperate in
> periods of less than 40 years.  His, and other evidence, helped cause
> the panic about a new ice age, since it would have started abruptly.
> These abrupt changes were only confirmed when the Camp Century cores
> became available, and now we suspect they can happen in as short a
> period as three years.

Some Victorian scientists also thought ice-ages began suddenly. This was
based on the finding of mammoths in permafrost. The state of the flesh
suggested that once they had been frozen they could not have been
de-frosted. This theory of sudden climate change was used by Erle Stanley
Gardner in 1932 for an SF short story. 

I also read in the 1960s that the NAD had flipped on and off in the past,
causing sudden climate changes in NW Europe.

-- 
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK.  E-mail: newsman not newsboy

On Sep 11, 4:52 am, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
> On Sep 11, 4:13 am, Alastair  wrote:
>
> > On Sep 10, 10:25 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
>
> > > And you can get it wrong, like them.
>
> > But Higgs is probably correct about his bosom, as I am with my Tiamat
> > Hypothesis :-)
>
> What is the Tiamat Hypothesis?
>
> If it merely concerns atmospherics, it isn't durable enough to have
> long term effects.

The Tiamat Hypothesis is an alternative to James Lovelock's Gaia
Hypothesis.

Life has existed on the planet for over 3,000 million years yet the
Sun has warmed by up to 25% during that time. How come that the world
has stayed habitable?

The Gaia Hypothesis is that life itself acted to modify the climate,
mainly through drawinging down carbon dioxide and so cooling the
planet as the sun warmed it, in a  negative feedback process.  Daisy
World is a computer model which shows how black and white flowers
could do this automatically.

The Tiamat Hypothesis proposes that the climate was maintained at a
steady temperature mechanically by water vapour, not carbon dioxide.
Water vapour increases sub-exponentially with temperature, and
provided the temperature is high enough, 25C say, then the temperature
will run away driven by the greenhouse effect of the water vapour, in
a positive feedback process.  However, when enough water vapour is
produced the result is cloud which blocks out the sunshine preventing
a higher temperatures, in a negative feedback process.  Thus you have
a simple control system with water vapour driving the temperature up
and cloud holding it down.  Of course you do still need carbon dioxide
to prevent the temperature falling below zero when virtually no water
vapour is produced.  That is what happened during Snowball Earth.

The Gaia Hypothesis is a biotic negative feedback using carbon
dioxide.  The Tiamat Hypothesis is an abiotic combination of positive
and negtive feedbacks acting through water vapour and carbon dioxide.

Quite a reasonable and sensible idea, but when people discover that it
only me who thought it up they soon laugh it off.  That's why I called
it the Tiamat Hypothesis. If I had called it Alastair's Hypothesis I
would not even get to explain it!

Cheers, Alastair.

On Sep 11, 8:37 am, Graham P Davis  wrote:
> Alastair wrote:
> > A second point is that abrupt climate change had already been
> > discovered in 1970 by G. Russell Coope, a British earth scientist, who
> > had used fossil beetles to show that the climate in the UK had
> > switched from temperate to polar, and again from polar to temperate in
> > periods of less than 40 years.  His, and other evidence, helped cause
> > the panic about a new ice age, since it would have started abruptly.
> > These abrupt changes were only confirmed when the Camp Century cores
> > became available, and now we suspect they can happen in as short a
> > period as three years.
>
> Some Victorian scientists also thought ice-ages began suddenly. This was
> based on the finding of mammoths in permafrost. The state of the flesh
> suggested that once they had been frozen they could not have been
> de-frosted. This theory of sudden climate change was used by Erle Stanley
> Gardner in 1932 for an SF short story.
>
> I also read in the 1960s that the NAD had flipped on and off in the past,
> causing sudden climate changes in NW Europe.
>
> --
> Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK.  E-mail: newsman not newsboy

I am not sure that the mammoths in permafrost has been explained even
yet.  But up until Camp Century, and even now, people are very loath
to accept that catastrophic climate change can happen.  The acceptance
of the Ice Age itself was a hard fought battle, as was the acceptance
that Meteor Crater had been formed by a meteorite and not a volcano.
There are still people refusing to believe that the dinosaurs were
wiped out by a collision with and an asteroid. And need I mention
climate change denial?

Cheers, Alastair.

On Sep 11, 4:13 am, Alastair  wrote:
> On Sep 10, 10:25 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
>
> > And you can get it wrong, like them.
>
> But Higgs is probably correct about his bosom, as I am with my Tiamat
> Hypothesis :-)
>
> Cheers, Alastair.

    So what does Higgsy have to say about his man-boobs?

Tudor Hughes.

On Sep 11, 9:37 am, Graham P Davis  wrote:
> Alastair wrote:
> > A second point is that abrupt climate change had already been
> > discovered in 1970 by G. Russell Coope, a British earth scientist, who
> > had used fossil beetles to show that the climate in the UK had
> > switched from temperate to polar, and again from polar to temperate in
> > periods of less than 40 years.  His, and other evidence, helped cause
> > the panic about a new ice age, since it would have started abruptly.
> > These abrupt changes were only confirmed when the Camp Century cores
> > became available, and now we suspect they can happen in as short a
> > period as three years.
>
> Some Victorian scientists also thought ice-ages began suddenly. This was
> based on the finding of mammoths in permafrost. The state of the flesh
> suggested that once they had been frozen they could not have been
> de-frosted. This theory of sudden climate change was used by Erle Stanley
> Gardner in 1932 for an SF short story.
>
> I also read in the 1960s that the NAD had flipped on and off in the past,
> causing sudden climate changes in NW Europe.

And yet the barley brewing monks of Tibet have relied on the deep snow
cover of their farms as sustenance to their crops which, having been
planted in the first snows, are harvested in the thaw.

It's a good job the Victorians stopped at the foothills of their
mountains.

On Sep 11, 3:52 pm, Weatherlawyer  wrote:
> On Sep 11, 9:37 am, Graham P Davis  wrote:
>
>
>
> > Alastair wrote:
> > > A second point is that abrupt climate change had already been
> > > discovered in 1970 by G. Russell Coope, a British earth scientist, who
> > > had used fossil beetles to show that the climate in the UK had
> > > switched from temperate to polar, and again from polar to temperate in
> > > periods of less than 40 years.  His, and other evidence, helped cause
> > > the panic about a new ice age, since it would have started abruptly.
> > > These abrupt changes were only confirmed when the Camp Century cores
> > > became available, and now we suspect they can happen in as short a
> > > period as three years.
>
> > Some Victorian scientists also thought ice-ages began suddenly. This was
> > based on the finding of mammoths in permafrost. The state of the flesh
> > suggested that once they had been frozen they could not have been
> > de-frosted. This theory of sudden climate change was used by Erle Stanley
> > Gardner in 1932 for an SF short story.
>
> > I also read in the 1960s that the NAD had flipped on and off in the past,
> > causing sudden climate changes in NW Europe.
>
> And yet the barley brewing monks of Tibet have relied on the deep snow
> cover of their farms as sustenance to their crops which, having been
> planted in the first snows, are harvested in the thaw.
>
> It's a good job the Victorians stopped at the foothills of their
> mountains.

I wonder how the interface for barley growing in the snows of the
himalayas works.

I get the high UV levels at altitude allows snow penetration for
photosynthesis but what about the mycology for healthy roots?

Here is something I dropped on by chance while surfing lost links in
my bookmarks.

Some Unusual & Interesting Facts About Mushrooms

4. Some of the oldest living mushroom colonies are fairy rings growing
around the famous Stonehenge ruins in England. The rings are so large
that they can best be seen from airplanes or satellites.

5. Some mushrooms produce compounds that fight cancer! This was
discovered when scientists in Japan found that a community had
unusually low cancer rates. The scientists discovered that the members
of the community grew and ate many Enokitake mushrooms!

7. Many mushrooms grow towards light, following the sun just like
plant. Unlike with plants, scientists do not yet know how mushrooms
use sunlight; only that they do.

9. Under the right conditions, some mushrooms’ spores can sit dormant
for decades or even a century, and still grow!

10. Mushrooms are useful not only as food and medicine; some are also
being used in bioremediation, to absorb and digest dangerous
substances like oil, pesticides and industrial waste, in places where
they threaten the environment.

And that was just the children's page: >

http://www.fungi.com/kids/index.html

A networking site has this to say about the author:

Paul Stamets
Mycologist, Author, Inventor & Founder of Fungi Perfecti

Paul Stamets has written 6 books on mushrooms, their cultivation and
use. His latest book, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save
the World is due out in October, 2005, published by Ten Speed Press,
Berkeley.

Paul has been active in using mycelium in breaking down toxic wastes,
capturing pathogenic bacteria, and has developed strategies where
mycelium kick-starts habitat restoration in ecologically devastated
environments. He has filed, to date, nearly 30 patents, with several
approved or in process.

Working with the Bioshield Biodefense Program coordinated by NIH/USAID/
USAMRIID, he has discovered that a rare polypore mushroom exclusive to
the old growth forest of Washington State is highly active against pox
viruses.

In fact, of more than 200,000 samples submitted to the program, two of
his extracts from two strains of this rare mushroom are in the top 10
of active samples submitted to date, pharmaceuticals included. In
fact, his is the only natural product showing significant antiviral
activity.

Paul advocates saving the old growth forest as a matter of national
defense. Paul is a strong proponent of preserving biodiversity, the
old growth forest, and for using environmentally rational strategies
to displace dependencies on toxic chemicals.

One of his patents on mycopesticides has been called an "Alexander
Graham Bell" patent as it has the potential of replacing most chemical
pesticides with an environmentally benign method.

http://www.lohas.com/forum/lohas9/page/speakers.html#marielhemingway

And that is just scratching the surface.

I would like to suggest that there may even be link to the weather
with them. After all how do we know what damage we do when we change
the environment with our crops and fertilisers, agri-chemicals and the
rest of it.

We used to practice crop rotation and even the biblical command to
rest the and periodically. We don't do either any more. Instead we
need to invent new species with genetic modifiers.

Why?

And here is something to get even the old school thinking: >

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/0_70.php

Anyone remember where last weeks low pressure ended up.....

every time?