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john, I'm with you all the way on this, but would like to pick up a couple of things:
"The 'science' behind CC due to MMGW" has been proven: global temperatures are" climbing at an alarming rate, faster than would be expected from Mother Nature alone”. But it's not too late. The predicted rate of climb is not “predicted to be beyond the rate at which mankind can successfully adapt”. It will cause vast economic disruption, shifts in global resource production, vast amounts of coastline flooding, and possible major conflicts. But adaptation per se is not the issue.
On your two points:
On Point 1/, there are very strong reasons to accept the science. It is based on basic GCSE-level physics and countless observations on Earth and Venus. It is so unlikely to be wrong that it is not worth making any other assumption. That being said, no science is 100% accurate; and nor do the climate models carry 100% certainty. What certainty there is lies in the fact that the extra energy has to go somewhere, and the atmosphere must be the agent for distributing it. The major concern about MMCC (other than the very unlikely event of a total runaway) is not the new stability: it is the disruption which will occur during the period of transition.
On point 2/, the science is right, but we are not, fortunately, on the brink of tipping the balance. Even the 2-3deg rise which is predicted will be bad enough.
On NikB's points:
We have less accurate data - tree rings, ice cores etc going back much further but they can't give us a day, week, month, year data readout.
Well, that's only partially true. In fact they can give us season and year readouts, and such information is vital in reconstruction ancient climates. But anyway that's besides the point. Climate modelling is statistical, based on trends. Nobody claims that these readouts can give day, week, month. But so what? Climate is weather averaged over years, and this information is perfectly good enough for that.
For us to be told that we're on the brink of runaway temperature rises (which has been quoted time and again in the news) I believe is naive and probably deliberately misleading.
Well, it would be if we were to believe the news (though to be honest I can't remember a single instance of any news item I have come across which actually made that claim). Luckily, runaway events are not being predicted. Unluckily, they are not needed for the effects of MMCC to be pretty devastating. |
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