UK to fare better than most as world warms up

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:




UK to fare better than most as world warms up
High night temperatures are predicted for UK cities, and these were blamed for deaths in the heatwave of 2003

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Friday, 17 June 2011


Britain will fare better than most other countries as the world heats up in the 21st century, but people living in London and other major UK cities will have to get used to uncomfortably hot summer nights, the latest assessment of global warming suggests.

A team of climate scientists in the United States have produced a detailed global study of the temperature increases expected in different regions over the coming century.

The analysis shows places such as China and the Arctic experiencing some of the greatest increases, while Britain remains relatively unscathed due mainly to the moderating influence of the North Atlantic. Even under the worst-case scenario, with a global failure to curb industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, Britain experiences an average temperature increase of between 2C and 4C by 2100, and North America has a catastrophic increase five times greater over the same period, the scientists say.

But the "urban heat-island" effect caused by buildings and roads trapping heat will mean that British cities will experience a much higher frequency of hot summer nights. High night-time temperatures, rather than day-time heat, was the major factor behind the deaths of thousands of elderly Europeans during the unusually hot summer of 2003: fatal heart and breathing problems usually strike at night. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/uk-to-fare-better-than-most-as-world-warms-up-2298706.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[marmar]

2. Please peddle that right-wing BS elsewhere.

nt

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

3. NASA is right wing...?

I didn't know that.

[marmar]

4. The trend is clear....only a fool can't see it.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

5. The Earth is 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old. Your timeline is minuscule in comparison.

Only a fool would try to draw any sort of conclusions from such a tiny dataset.

[kristopher]

6. When you have a fever and you apply a cool compress, does it cure the fever?

Or does it just provide a bit of relief?

The cycle of solar activity discussed in your OP is one variable in the global warming equation. It is the kind of thing that causes the trend line to wriggle, but not to change its overall direction.

Unrec for obvious political trolling by someone that doesn't grasp the nature of the physical problem being discussed.

[marmar]

7. Uh huh. Whatever. ..... Your anti-intellectual trolling is rather obvious.

I'll give you this much credit though: At least you stay to defend the stupidity rather than the usual hit-and-run tactics.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

8. The only thing that is obvious is your lack of knowledge regarding scientific research methods.

[marmar]

9. Why do you and your ilk persist in posting this crap here, when it's obvious nobody believes you?

nt

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

12. I take that back, another thing that is obvious is your fear of things that challenge

you sacred beliefs.

[marmar]

14. Nobody here fears rank stupidity.

nt

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

15. Are you the spokesperson for everyone "here?"

[stuntcat]

19. yes.

.

[stuntcat]

20. "beliefs"

beliefs are not knowledge. As for 'sacred' I wish I did not know all the things I've learned the last 20 years, nothing about what we're doing is "sacred" to anyone with a conscience.

I have "beliefs" yes, about the comfortable Americans who will never give up fighting scientists & environmentalists. And you can never give it up.. your belief is that strong.

[bananas]

10. Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) published a major analysis of this precise situation

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/15/246202/sun-hibernation-deniers/

Sadly, If Sun Goes Into ‘Hibernation’ It Won’t Stop Catastrophic Global Warming, But It Might Put the Deniers in Hibernation
By Joe Romm on Jun 15, 2011 at 6:25 pm

<snip>

But the LIA wasn’t just driven by a drop in solar forcing – it was also driven by a burst of volcanic activity (see “A detailed look at the Little Ice Age“). And now we have human-caused greenhouse gases that have overwhelmed the much, much smaller solar forcing.

You’d never know it from the anti-science crowd, but last year Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) published a major analysis of this precise situation, “On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate on Earth,” (PDF here). That peer-reviewed study concluded that if we did see a Maunder minimum this century:

In summary, global mean temperatures in the year 2100 would most likely be diminished by about 0.1°C

That means, on our current emissions path, we would be only about 9°F to 11°F warmer than preindustrial levels in 2100, rather than, say about 9°F – 11°F warmer. I would note that the 2010 analysis did not include major carbon cycle feedbacks like the tundra, whose impact will likely exceed that of any drop in solar irradiance this century (see NSIDC bombshell: Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100).

Here are three key points:

<snip>

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

13. Do you agree with Al Gore, when he talks about Manhattan flooding this century?

[NickB79]

16. And Al Gore has what to do with the research paper Bananas just posted?

No trying to change topics, what do you think of the research paper that pretty much destroys the point you've been trying to make here?

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

17. I think it is another point of view...another study.

Are you suggesting that NASA is not qualified to perform scientific research?

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Have you checked to see what NASA actually said?

They said:

Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715 (38 kb JPEG image). Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past. The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/SunspotCycle.shtml

They are not predicting a period of global cooling; they are saying any possible connection is worth investigating.

The quote "the Earth may be embarking on a period of global cooling" didn't come from NASA; It came from Mark R. Whittington, who writes for, among other publications, the Weekly Standard - the quintessential right wing publication. And if you doubt he is right wing, take a look at his love of Sarah Palin and her "barn burning speeches", and how criticism of her is an 'unrelenting smear campaign'.

[bananas]

21. Al Gore never said that, as far as I can tell.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/how-much-will-sea-level-rise/

How much will sea level rise?
September 2008

<snip>

There have certainly been incorrect assertions and headlines implying that 20 ft of sea level by 2100 was expected, but they are mostly based on a confusion of a transient rise with the eventual sea level rise which might take hundreds to thousands of years. And before someone gets up to say Al Gore, we’ll point out preemptively that he made no prediction for 2100 or any other timescale. The nearest thing I can find is Jim Hansen who states that “it almost inconceivable that BAU climate change would not yield a sea level change of the order of meters on the century timescale”. But that is neither a specific prediction for 2100, nor necessarily one that is out of line with the Pfeffer et al’s bounds.

<snip>

That page has an embedded dead link to the transcript of "An Inconvenient Truth",
which can be found at archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20090217153536/http://forumpolitics.com/blogs/2007/03/17/an-inconvient-truth-transcript/

An Inconvient Truth Transcript
March 17, 2007

<snip>

West Antarctica Land Based Ice

I want to focus on West Antarctica, because it illustrates two factors about land-based ice and sea-based ice. It’s a little of both. It’s propped on tops of islands, but the ocean comes up underneath it. So if the ocean gets warmer, it has an impact on it. If this were to go, sea levels worldwide would go up 20 feet. They’ve measured disturbing changes on the underside of this ice sheet. It’s considered relatively more stable, however, than another big body of ice that is roughly the same size. Greenland

Impact of 20 Foot Rise in Sea Level

In 1992 they measured this amount of melting in Greenland. 10 years later this is what happened. And here is the melting from 2005. Tony Blair’s scientific advisor has said that because of what is happening in Greenland right now, the map of the world will have to be redrawn. Global Warming Ice Chart If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted, this is what would happen to the sea level in Florida. This is what would happen in the San Francisco Bay. A lot of people live in these areas. The Netherlands, the low-countries: absolutely devastating. The area around Beijing is home to tens of millions of people. Even worse, in the area around Shanghai, there are 40 million people. Worse still, Calcutta and, to the East Bangladesh the area covered includes 50 million people. Think of the impact of a couple hundred thousand refugees when they are displaced by an environmental event and then imagine the impact of a hundred million or more. Here is Manhattan. This is the World Trade Center Memorial Site. After the horrible events of 9/11 we said never again. But this is what would happen to Manhattan. They can measure this precisely, just as the scientists could predict precisely how much water would breech the levy in New Orleans. The area where the World Trade Center Memorial is to be located would be under water. Is it possible that we should prepare against other threats besides terrorists? Maybe we should be concerned about other problems as well.

<snip>

If you can find a direct quote where he said Manhattan would be flooded this century, let me know.

[Odin2005]

22. Alerted for RW trolling.

What do you want on your tombstone, you troll?

[txlibdem]

11. Reminds me of something

http://youtu.be/rjqRsWSO-g8?t=42s

[diane in sf]

23. Might fare better if East Anglia doesn't end up underwater.

[bvar22]

24. Al Gore says that the warming of the planet...

...will plunge the UK back into an ice age
because the Gulf Stream will be disrupted by the fresh water run off from the glaciers.
This makes sense to me.
The UK and Western Europe enjoy a much warmer climate for that latitude,
courtesy of the Gulf Stream.