Rising temperatures will increase the risk of forest fires, droughts and flooding over the next two centuries, UK climate scientists have warned.

Even if harmful emissions were cut now, many parts of the world would face a greater risk of natural disasters, a team from Bristol University said.

The projections are based on data from more than 50 climate models looking at the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4791257.stm

The article you cited leaves many questions.

What were the assumptions for the models? With what accuracy have these 52 models been able to predict the weather and forest cover that we have had for the past 100 years? With what certainty can they say that a single digit rise in temperature will cause the amount of forest cover to change? What is the point in comparing the models' output when they all have different inaccuracies and different assumptions? Are there more models that they did not include for some reason? With what accuracy have they been able to predict the amount of cloud cover for the next 200 years?

Richard Betts said this study makes an "important new contribution to the debate on the effects of climate change." These are just guesses at what could happen in the future. Environment Canada is rarely correct in its 5 day forecast. If meteorologists cannot predict what will happen 5 days into the future without at least an average of 95% accuracy, what makes people so confident in the 200 years predictions? Go to http://www.forecastadvisor.com and enter a zip code to find out its 5 day forecast accuracy.

A debate should be based on facts, not wild speculations of what could happen. This is like your Greenland\'s Melting topic that sunk into a hairied discussion on what cities are going to be below sea level. There is another question. Why did these 52 models not indicate a huge rise in sea levels? A debate on the effects of climate change is barely useful in developing plans for the future. It is great propaganda though.

I like how the articles finishes with this, "Dr Scholze said he hoped the findings would be used in debates on dangerous climate change and the measures needed to avoid it." It is as though they think there is some way of avoiding climate change. How can you avoid something that is out of our control?

John M Reynolds

John Reynolds writes:
"The article you cited leaves many questions."

I would hope so. I would hope you couldn't look up at the moon and not have a few questions.

But we really have reached the point where there is not much left to debate except how much and by when. Even the anti-science President of the United States has now acknowledged global warming to be real. Which truly amazed me given he so far has spent a great deal of time denying the obvious.

before i can even start to get worried about how bad the emissions are going to be, id first have to stop worrying about how much the sun is doing to the earth. If you can show me that they took into account the affect of the sun, then id be more likely to take the polution in to account more. unless they can show me that they have taken into consideration that the sun has been moving towards a solar maximum for the last few centuries, then id not have much confidence in their long term forcast.

dehammer wrote:
" If you can show me that they took into account the affect of the sun, then id be more likely to take the polution in to account more."

I haven't the time or inclination to show you. If you are truly interested go to google.com or fazzle.com and find it yourself (2-3 minutes maximum effort required).

I think the point here is that even a first year college student could, and would, ask your question so to suppose that PhD climatologists and the researchers in every country that have worked on this somehow forgot the sun is just plain (you know what I'm thinking so fill in word here).

they why do they claim that the only effect that is causing the increase in global warming is the polution. in case you have not notice, many have said otherwise and their forcast for distant time is much lower than those you follow.

DA Morgan.

Are you not going to even try to field any of my questions? Did you read the article I cited in the Greenland's Melting thread? If you did not read it, then you missed tidbits like this:

"If anything, the increased shrillness of global warming theory devotees may be a sign of scientific weakness, says Chylek. "What is very discouraging is that many people who strongly support global warming caused by carbon dioxide are trying to suppress scientific discussion," he says. Legitimate scientists welcome challenges that test their theories. They can help make a scientific argument stronger. "You have to think about it [the opposition], discredit it eventually, and then go forward. But if you try to suppress dissenting opinion, it shows that you are really weak in your positions," he says.

But, in many cases, Canadian scientists had little choice but to toe the line of the previous federal Liberal government. Environment Canada transformed into a church of global warming theory, and researchers looking for funding were frozen out unless they signed on to the official dogma. "Obviously, if you are against the measured direction pushed for by governments, it will slow down your professional progress," Chylek says. "You will have difficulty at university getting tenure, you will not be getting grants, et cetera." But he says that friends of his, who have since retired, have come clean with doubts about anthropogenic global warming. "So now they say, 'Now I am retired; now I can say what I really think,'" he says." -- http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=print.print_article&article_id=1864

Why are you even posting here if you don't want to participate in the debate? Telling dehammer that you don't have the time or inclination to show him that he is right or wrong, means you are not participating in the discussion.

dehammer asks:
"why do they claim that the only effect that is causing the increase in global warming is the polution."

I can't think of a single serious science article I have ever read in which any climatologist or researcher claimed the ONLY cause was pollution.

Where do you get this stuff?

If you would post links it would give some basis from which to conclude that you aren't just drinking way too much Colt.45 and making this stuff up. Because, to be honest, that is my impression. Seriously. I've never heard anyone ever make that claim except you.

The article you quoted in the first post of this thread has the following where Marko Scholze was quoting the UN:

"The United Nations says we should limit greenhouse gas emissions so we do not have dangerous climate change."

In other words, limiting greenhouse gas emissions will prevent dangerous climate change. That put's 100% of the cause of dangerous climate change onto green house gasses. 100% = only.

So I guess we get this stuff from you.

And if not then, the next 500 years, or the next millennium. LA building code is good to about a Richer 7 temblor. A new study for Caltech shows that a Richter 7.9 will tumble LA. Official PANIC! And if built to withstand a Richter 8, they'll model a Richter 10.

2007 is Officially the most devasting hurricane year in human history. Hurricanes feed off high water temps. The Gulf of Mexico, the entire Gulf Stream, is cooking like mama's bad soup. The number of hurricanes (devastating or otherwise) in 2007 is going to be... about... zero.

Are you going to derail tens of $trillions of First World economies because a bunch of loud frauds claim to know God's e-mail address? Does economics work? Does psychology work? Ha ha ha. Climatology makes those endeavors look like decent science. Hey git - climatology cannot model clouds. Do you think clouds make a difference?

Does religion work? Only if you are a priest on the receiving end of collection baskets.

JMR,
I tried your link and didn't get any article, just a header and my print window showed up again. Do you have another link, perhaps?

Amaranth

boy does this seem formilar for some reason. oh, yes, we just did this exact exchange a week or two ago in another thread.

ive notice that you have not bother posting on the thread i started that had links to things that pointed out the flaws in the theory of 'only man made global warming'.

try copy/paste the link and remove the 'print.print' part. then search for global warming or Chylek

I haven't tried searching for global warming or Chylek. I found that searching for Greenland gives a link to the article to which I was referring. I posted the text into the Greenland's Melting topic for those who wish to read it without registering at Western Standard's website:

http://www.scienceagogo.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/1/1072/3.html

dehammer wrote:
"ive notice that you have not bother posting on the thread i started that had links to things that pointed out the flaws in the theory of 'only man made global warming'."

Actually I did respond but it seems one of our mild mannered moderators ate the content.

What I said was that no climatologist or serious scientist had ever claimed that 'only man' and I asked you to demonstrate that climatologist ever made the statement. Personally I think you made it up.

Hopefully this is mild enough to survive.

this sounds so familar. oh, yes we just did this in another thread a short while back. after i showed you that there were some people that did claim this. you ignored them and made fun of the fact that i claimed they were not following all the trends of the tempature changes when they only followed those of the last half centruy.

why should i do this again when the last time i did so you ignore it and made fun of the fact that i claimed that they were not following all the tempature changes since they were only considering the last half century. seem you had a problem with the word all.

dehammer asks:
"why should i do this again when the last time i did so you ignore it"

I don't know. Perhaps someone else can answer that question for you.

OK, here's a new one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/02/AR2006050201677.html

notice that they have to "concluded that more recent satellite data -- coupled with some corrections to earlier analyses -- had reconciled surface temperature observations with satellite records."

why did they have to correct the earlier analyses if it was correct? why did they have to reconcile the data in order to make them comply?

yet even after having to alter the data they still came to the conclusion:

Let me get this straight. DA posted a link to an article about a paper where Marko Scholze, from the University of Bristol's Department of Earth Sciences, and the paper's lead author, quotes the UN as saying , "The United Nations says we should limit greenhouse gas emissions so we do not have dangerous climate change."

Though this quote says that if humans were to limit greenhouse gas emissions, then we would not have dangerous climate change.

Then DA says, "that no climatologist or serious scientist had ever claimed that 'only man' and I asked you to demonstrate that climatologist ever made the statement. Personally I think you made it up."

That means DA thinks that Marko Scholze is not a serious scientist. So, then why did DA post the original article?

John M Reynolds

the headline read...
............................................
RISING TEMPERATURES CAUSE OF HIGH GAS PRICES
............................................
funny headline to say the least.

perhaps this would have been a little clearer.

...................................................
GAS CAUSE OF RISING TEMPERATURES WHICH CAUSED HIGH GAS PRICES
...................................................

thats sort of like this headline
.............................................
OIL COMPANIES ADMIT THEY ARE RESPONCIBLE FOR PEOPLE USING MORE GAS THAN THEY NEED TO WHEN THEY BUY LARGE SUV'S VS SMALLER CARS THAT GET THREE OR FOUR TIMES THE MILEAGE THAT SUV'S GET
.............................................

oil companies are not responsible for the choises of people that decide they want suv's rather than small economy cars. Its the people who buy those vehicles (and over powered smaller cars) that are responsible for the oil companies selling so much gas.

There is no point discussing whether the article leaves any question or not. Look at the recent exceptional weather events in the warm countries. The drought prone desert Barmer district in the western state of India(rajasthan), is experiencing heavy floods. This regions has no history of such a heavy rain fall. What do you say climate change or...???

It completely wrong to say they have never had any heavy rain, which is what that statement suggest. instead it is more correct that there have been none recorded. Every part of the world has experience heavy rain at some point.

No one is arguing wheither or not there is climate change. what the arguement is about is how much of it is mans doing. According to the GWA, at one point, man was the solo cause of it. They have since backed down from that and now claim he is the primary cause of it. Others claim that there is more causes to it than we know of, and that there are cycles that are occuring. some of these are at the point where they will cause a considerable increase in temperature at this point, but some of these cycles are indicating a cooling trend soon. Some will have a cooling trend by middle of the century, others some time after 2100.

what many people are not willing to see is that the climate of the earth is very dynamic. its always changing. We are in an upswing now, but for how long?

Very few people have every claimed that man has had no effect on climate. Some have claimed that less than 2 percent of the change of the last century is due to man, while others claim its 98 percent. The reality, im sure is somewhere in between. personally i believe that less than a quarter of it is due to man. The most we have done is accelerate it a few decades (imho).

but to answer your question, yes, there is a climate change.

Lovelock was interviewed in the Post yesterday:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6090101800.html

He covers some of the issues of this thread.

It sounds like he is running out of hope for us

Erich J. Knight

might want to check out that link. it did not return anything.

Erich, your link 404'ed on me. Do you have another?

Amaranth

The End of Eden
James Lovelock Says This Time We've Pushed the Earth Too Far

sorry about the link

I don't agree that we're too far gone. I don't think he is taking account of the nano revolution in energy, the potential,(if needed),in weather control technology, and the prospects of CO 2 sequestration strategies like Terra Preta Soils and Ocean Fertilization.

This Gaia topic is now hitting multiple news sources. While the Washington Posts article strikes me as being an advertisement for his speech he was to be giving last Friday, other's are commenting on it. I found mention of it on the http://tim.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/9/5/2296987.html page. Tim Denton wrote:

"The tendency of humans to look for answers to scientific issues and natural catastrophes in human sin is ancient, mistaken, and perennial."

John M Reynolds

ok, so if this is going to destroy the worlds life, how did life live 55 million years ago?

i do believe they guy (tim) from John's link is on the right track here. good one, John.

Did you see this from the same guy.

http://tim.blogware.com/blog/Politics/_archives/2006/9/3/2290390.html

I also like this comment.