And now brace yourself for an ice age

deckingman

Quite so. I too would like to know if data is being "selected" and if so, why.

SyStemDeMoN

After reading some of your posts in here, it is obvious to me you are an intelligent person.

So I think you know why data is / would be selected.

Money

Just be thankful that its not something we can use weapons against, or we would be in a mess and another actual war.

deckingman

I suspect it's a political agenda rather than a scientific one. However, I try to keep an open mind. The difficult part is to find unbiased evidence from either side of the debate.

I would still like to know what the optimum Global mean temperature is. What is the Global mean temperature now? Is the optimum one or two degrees warmer or one or two degrees cooler and if so why? All we have are speculative theories about the possible consequences, seemingly based Holywood disaster movies.

The truth is that nobody knows. Appart it seems from the MET Office. Quote from their web site - "UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) is a climate analysis tool, funded by Defra, which features the most comprehensive climate projections ever produced."

And here you can find out for the year 2050, and for each specific area of the UK, things like,  Average winter rainfall, Average Annual Rainfall, Average temperature, Average warmest sunny day etc.

A truly marvelous feat of forecasting which no other climate scientist or body is able to accomplish. All from an organisation which cannot even predict 5 days hence with any degree of accuracy.

NikB

What do you mean by optimal? Are you referring to optimal for mankind? If not then I doubt there is such a thing. Life on the planet adapts to the environment provided it has the time to do so.
If you are referring to optimal for mankind then do you mean optimal for crop growth and similar processes?

deckingman

Optimal for life (including mankind). For survival, we can build shelters and find ways to keep warm. So it comes down to the basic necessities of food and water. The entire food chain depends on plant life (both on land and in the sea. So we can therefore say that the optimal conditions would be those which support rapid plant growth.

It may be too simplistic a view, but looking at the bio diversity and proliferation of life in equatorial and tropical regions and comparing this with more cooler and polar regions, one could surmise that a warmer climate would be more beneficial than a cooler one.

Food for thought? (Sorry, I'll get my coat.......)

johntheexpat

Lets not confuse weather and climate.

johntheexpat

Well we just don't know.  What we do know is that we thrive as a race under the current global climate and if it changes we just don't know what will happen.  All those arguments about increased CO2 being good for increased growth are spurious at best, for example.  It seems there are at least two routes for photosynthesis, C3 and C4 and one benefits slightly from increased CO2 and one doesn't.  And if we wean the east of rice (which is water intensive) and onto potatoes, we may be better able to feed the world.  Its all a bit of a gamble though.

Do you feel lucky?

Or perhaps as, like most of us, you will be dead and buried in 100 years time - when they are predicting it will start really kicking in - and as such you can't really get enthused about potential problems that won't concern you?

deckingman

I'm not - the MET office is - by seemingly being able to predict the average annual rainfall, average hotest summers day, average winter rainfall etc, etc, for (the example I looked at) the East midlands region of the UK in the year 2050.

deckingman

I was talking about climate and specifically about temperature. I made no mention of CO2 or any argument about increased growth due to CO2. Why the fixation?

Plants thrive under warmer conditions (give enough water of course). That's how greenhouses work. Personally, given the choice, I'd rather live in a greenhouse surrounded by plants, than an igloo surounded by ice.   

Oh, and you say "they are predicting it will start really kicking in". That depends on who you believe.

johntheexpat

That's climate



That's weather