Dabblers Asseverating Statistical Significance,
Climate seems foremost in my mind at the moment. A top amateur meteorologist seems intent on portraying ‘global warming’ as a myth. Using the temperature statistics for North America, he predicts a trend of global cooling and he correlates this to reducing solar activity (part of solar cycles). Of course, relating the Earth’s climate to the Sun’s power output is not a revolutionary idea.
Personal experience tells me that we cannot rely on just one influencing factor to predict climate. I once chatted to a man about a position involving computational climate modelling, I was told that the job would be to try to incorporate every factor possible into a computer programme that had been developed but he followed up by telling me that the task was impossible and that an answer would never be reached by whoever took on the project. As well as studying the major atmospheric and oceanic circulations, the factors which affect them have to be analysed and combined; surface temperatures, rainfall, surface run-off, ice sheet coverage and break-up, ocean salinity (thermohaline circulation) and more.
If human disruption overcomes to the natural variability and the planet’s defence mechanisms, the Earth is scuppered. Humans might only be capable of influencing a few factors – most notably, the atmospheric composition, but they have to bear the brunt of the follow-on effects of their behaviours. Although very little around us is natural, we should strive to maintain standards that are as close to the Earth’s natural levels as possible. With respect to CO2, if people don’t believe that emissions don’t influence climate, say as much as sunspots, the fact that fuels such as oil, coal and gas are not renewable should be reason enough to limit their usage.
As news of a rapidly melting glacier made the BBC headlines, can global cooling really be expected to patch it up?
Personal experience tells me that we cannot rely on just one influencing factor to predict climate. I once chatted to a man about a position involving computational climate modelling, I was told that the job would be to try to incorporate every factor possible into a computer programme that had been developed but he followed up by telling me that the task was impossible and that an answer would never be reached by whoever took on the project. As well as studying the major atmospheric and oceanic circulations, the factors which affect them have to be analysed and combined; surface temperatures, rainfall, surface run-off, ice sheet coverage and break-up, ocean salinity (thermohaline circulation) and more.
If human disruption overcomes to the natural variability and the planet’s defence mechanisms, the Earth is scuppered. Humans might only be capable of influencing a few factors – most notably, the atmospheric composition, but they have to bear the brunt of the follow-on effects of their behaviours. Although very little around us is natural, we should strive to maintain standards that are as close to the Earth’s natural levels as possible. With respect to CO2, if people don’t believe that emissions don’t influence climate, say as much as sunspots, the fact that fuels such as oil, coal and gas are not renewable should be reason enough to limit their usage.
As news of a rapidly melting glacier made the BBC headlines, can global cooling really be expected to patch it up?
posted by Leif at 1:58 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home