[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Ok, so here's the thing about all this that often gets lost when talking about whether or not projections are accurate.

If the projections are not accurate then why are we here ?

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere IS trapping heat in our planet. First of all, it's physically impossible for it to do otherwise...

Yes but not as predicted, in fact far less than predicted.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Second, the outer atmosphere is cooling, which means less heat is getting to it, and we KNOW that the sun hasn't dimmed that much - if it had, we'd ALL be feeling the effects.

Well actually the sun has been dimming, linky on the outer atmosphere please.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

From the beginning, we've known that the warming wouldn't progress in a steady line year to year or decade to decade to decade. We HAVE had a progression in which every decade has been warmer than the last, but there's no guarantee that we won't have a decade that cools for a bit, before going back up.

The physics of the situation remains the same - greenhouse gasses trap heat, more greenhouse gasses mean more heat.

Yes but we don't know how much. This is pretty crucial - double CO2 resulting in 3 Deg C is worrying maybe, double CO2 resulting in 1.2 is not. The models are broken, we need new ones. Guy Calendar's made on paper is doing better than those built on multi £m computers - all consuming energy and belching CO2 BTW

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

The effects of more heat are also pretty straightforward.

You will need to be less, er, unspecific here.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

As to whether or not drought has had an effect on food production, the 2010 drought was why Russia halted all grain exports.

No it was wildfires. Have you heard of Google ?

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

Maybe there WAS a decline in productivity in the 1990's, but you know what? That doesn't change the fact that when we have a drought productivity goes down. Fast.

Agreed. GM crops help here.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

As has been mentioned in this very discussion, the effects of climate change don't happen overnight. The paleocene-eocene thermal maximum, which was enough of an event to be visible in the geological record, took 20,000 years to go through the whole warming, with a 10,000 year period for doubling CO2.

So why do these "scientists" keep making such stupid and clearly unfounded predictions - the arctic is supposed to be ice free right now.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

We're on track to double CO2 in a total of around 400 or 500 years, with warming continuing after that.

You do know each doubling has a reduced effect ?

And what about the benefits of a little more heat ?

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

When you get into the specifics of what will or won't happen, there IS a lot that is unknown, but we DO know what happens when you raise CO2 levels (warming), and we DO know that unless there's some massive factor that nobody has thought of, that warming will continue as long as CO2 levels keep rising, and then for a while after they stabilize.

According to Mr, sorry, Prof. Flannery - the guy just sacked in Australia - temps will continue to rise for 1000 years after we stabilise CO2 - if we actually can.

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

If the paper showing no significant change in drought patterns is right, then that's interesting, and worth looking it, but we haven't warmed all that much yet - we're right at the beginning of the warming

Hang on, I thought we have had 100 years of super warming - remember that graph that reaches for the stars ?

Originally Posted by Alteredstory

- and our best understanding of how things work (which has accurately predicted a number of factors like the faster warming in the arctic, and the faster rise in average NIGHT TIME temperatures, and the melting of ice, and the changes to ecosystems, and the cooling of the outer atmosphere) indicates that drought and flood cycles will start to get more intense. Nothing has come along to indicate that that's not going to happen, or that something else IS going to happen.

You see, here's the thing...