Ummm!

[Digit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... eveal.html

As I have said before I tend to look at what is not said in some reports, (I'll ignore the carbon monoxide comment BTW,) but are they referring to present day polar regions, which weren't at the poles a 100,000,000 yrs ago or land masses that were at the poles 100,000,000 yrs ago?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

that their research shows that during the age of the dinosaurs, polar-regions had a climate similar to Britain today.

I'm guessing that they are referring to land masses that WERE at the poles...or near the poles... back then.

But it is poorly worded.

[Digit]

So much of scentific reporting is poorly worded, as I have said before Min, I tend to look at what these people don't say. Here....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... al-warming

"It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities."

18 months ago the Guardian would not have hedged its bets like that. And again...

"There is strong evidence that the warming of the Earth over the last half-century has been caused largely by human activity,

"If some newly discovered factor can account for the climate change then why aren't carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases producing the warming that basic physics tells us they should be?"

Good question. Here's the answer, as per Guardian.

The only way to prove with 100% certainty that humans are responsible for global warming would be to run an experiment with two identical Earths – one with human influence and one without. That obviously isn't possible, and so most scientists are careful not to state human influence as an absolute certainty.

Are they? They have changed.

The only way to prove with 100% certainty that humans are responsible for global warming would be to run an experiment with two identical Earths – one with human influence and one without.

True, and that can/is done by looking at previous warming episodes, nobody suggest the end of the last Ice Age was down to man so without an adquate explanation to previous cooling/warmings they are still, if you will pardon the pun, on thin ice.
Most people's scientific knowledge is too skimpy to argue, and I have yet to see the Guardian explain how CO2 will warm the polar regions more than the lower latitudes. Which Solar radiation increases would do.
I live in hope though.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I suppose there is no way to blame warming 100 million years ago on human activity.

[Digit]

Quite, but one of the things yet to be explained is not temp rises in the past but their speed. The last GM ended almost over night!
There are a number of theoretical possibilities, and they are all cosmological.
I don't think we should ignore CO2 enrichment, but please let's have some serious research in to some of the other possibilities, and also into the possible results of a combination of forcings.
The failure of temps to rise in step with CO2 needs explaining, not explaining away, but understanding.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

[Digit]

Very tre! But the science is on my side!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

So do the other side.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120312003232.htm

The Greenland ice sheet is likely to be more vulnerable to global warming than previously thought. The temperature threshold for melting the ice sheet completely is in the range of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius of global warming, with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels, shows a new study. Today, already 0.8 degrees global warming has been observed.

[Digit]

Granted Min, but with one small problem, they do not explain the source of the heat! Why should the polar regions warm more rapidly than the temperate?
We know the planet has warmed, it has been warming for thousands of years, all previous warmings have been abrupt, rapid. Why?
The last GM when from maximum to full retreat in a life time, that required an enormous amount of heat energy. Where did it come from?
I read an account in the Guardian earlier this week that claimed that the present temp gradient is unparalleled in history, that is total BS! That the rate of rise is due to man's interference, unproven.
No mention of the fact that temps have been going down for millions of years. Now you know that what I have said is based on facts Min.
A serious article i read last wek suggested that the last GM ended due to a change in the Antarctic warming season sending massive amounts of heat energy northwards, OK, but we return again to the source of that heat. Which in every case must be the Sun, so unless the Sun's radiation increased the northwards transport of energy must have been at the expense of the southern pole. So if correct what caused it to happen? It has already been suggested in serious science that the southern currents are changing, so perhaps we are about to experience a re-run.
Take a look at this, is in the range of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius , sounds terrifying, but look at again, that is a latitude error of 400% Or with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees in other words, plus or minus 200%. Sounds more like a guess to me.
Unless the Sun's radiation changes the only source of heat energy capable of melting the last GM so rapidly is ocean currents transferring heat from one area to another. The atmosphere is simply not capable of transferring so much energy so rapidly.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120325173206.htm

The past decade has been one of unprecedented weather extremes. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany argue that the high incidence of extremes is not merely accidental. From the many single events a pattern emerges. At least for extreme rainfall and heat waves the link with human-caused global warming is clear, the scientists show in a new analysis of scientific evidence in the journal Nature Climate Change. Less clear is the link between warming and storms, despite the observed increase in the intensity of hurricanes.

And here we go again.

[Digit]

the link with human-caused global warming is clear,

No it isn't! The link is between Global Warming and weather.

Roy.