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Dublin city centre last Wednesday Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland

Explainer: Is global warming causing harsher winters (and springs)?

Some scientists are beginning to put together data which shows climate change is causing icy polar air to be displaced towards Europe.

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE across northern Europe are still battling snow and ice, wondering why they are being punished with bitter cold when – officially – spring has arrived and Europe is in the grip of global warming.

Yet some scientists, eyeing the fourth year in a row of exceptionally harsh late-winter weather in parts of Europe and North America, suggest warming is precisely the problem.

In a complex tango between ocean and atmosphere, warming is causing icy polar air to be displaced southwards, they contend.

“The linkage is becoming clearer and clearer, I think, although the science has not yet been settled,” said Dim Coumou of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin.

The theory derives from a long-studied Arctic phenomenon called a positive feedback – in plain words, a vicious circle.

Rising temperatures are melting the Arctic’s floating cap of sea ice, especially in summer.

In 1979, when satellite measurements began, summer ice covered some 7 million square kilometres, roughly equivalent to 90 per cent the area of Australia.

In September 2012, summer ice hit its lowest extent on record, at just 3.4 million square kilometres.

Take away reflective ice, and you have a dark sea that absorbs solar radiation, which in turn reinforces the melting, and so on.

But the theory suggests the added heat, stored over a vast area of surface water, is also gradually released into the atmosphere during the Arctic autumn.

It increases air pressure and moisture in the Arctic, reducing the temperature differential with lower latitudes.

Snow-covered daffodils this week (Chris Radburn/PA)

Here’s what happens next: The polar vortex, a powerful circular wind that essentially pens Arctic air to the roof of the world, begins to weaken.

Finding itself released, a mass of moist cold air spills southward, bringing snow and chill down into North America and Europe.

And it tends to stay there, because of what happens to the jet stream.

Instead of encircling the northern hemisphere in a sturdy and predictable fashion, this high-altitude wind takes a lazy looping path, zigzagging over the United States, the Atlantic and Europe. The southern parts of the loops get a bout of cold weather that becomes stalled in place.

“Heat that is stored in the (Arctic) ocean can rapidly transfer to the atmosphere, and this affects the dynamics” of northern hemisphere weather patterns, said Coumou in a phone interview.

We’ve had a couple of winters (in Europe) where you’ve had rather shorter-term cold spells, of a duration of maybe 10, 20, 30 days… It’s been the same in the continental US and Canada where they’ve seen similar quite bizarre cold spells but of a relatively shorter period.

Arctic warming ‘stacks the decks’

Snow on Griffith Avenue in Dublin last week (Photo: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland

Charles Greene, director of the Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Program at Cornell University in New York, said Arctic warming added a joker or two to the climate pack.

“With the changes in sea ice, we set up a situation where we stack the deck, increasing the probability of these invasions of cold Arctic air,” he said.

But what’s less predictable is which regions in the mid-latitudes will get hit. We’re not sure yet how it will interact with other parts of the climate system in any given year, for instance how it will interact with El Nino and La Nina.

Greene also postulates that Superstorm Sandy last October wreaked its havoc because of a high-pressure zone over Greenland, possibly strengthened by changes triggered by sea-ice loss in the Arctic.

Like a barrier closing off a street, this mass of air forced Sandy to turn sharply west so that it slammed into the US East Coast. Normally, late-season hurricanes follow a northeastern track and peter out at sea.

More evidence

The warming-and-winter scenario is far from unanimous in climatology. Other experts call for more evidence, especially from longer-term data.

“Looking at what’s happening right now, in early spring, it’s too early to say whether it is due in part to a temporary climatic swing,” said David Salas-y-Melia of Meteo France, the French meteorological agency.

Jeff Knight of Britain’s Met Office pointed to a natural climate variation called the North Atlantic Oscillation, whose phases tend to span 30 to 40 years.

Several decades of relatively harsher winters alternate with relatively milder ones – but there can also be years within these phases that buck the trend.

“In Europe, the effect of climate variability is quite large,” said Knight. “There are possible links to explain why sea ice might influence atmospheric circulation, but the jury is very much still out at the moment.”

- © AFP, 2013

Read: Snow showers to continue in the east, cold elsewhere >

Read: Winter fuel allowance to be extended following cold snap >

Photos: Snow-ice warning in place as Irish Air Corps aids NI snowbound livestock >

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    Mute Shane Wixted
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:13 PM

    Too many agendas going on in environmental science to know who to believe.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:02 PM

    Its a myth pushed by vested interests that there’s no scientific concensus about global warming:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-scientific-consensus.htm

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    Mute james doyle
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:22 PM

    directdemocracyireland.ie/agenda-21/

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    Mute Matthew Donoghue
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:36 PM

    CO2 insulates heat. If you add it to the atmosphere, the atmosphere will retain more heat. The question isnt is this happening its at what rate because making climte models to predict exactly whats happening now and whats going to happen is really difficult.

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    Mute Dermot McNally
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    Apr 1st 2013, 8:26 PM

    Agenda’s !!!??? Its a no brainer!- err on the side of caution, ie protect climate, in the meantime we save money by choosing fuel efficient homes and cars. we eat less chemicals when we control our own food production (hence reducing unnecessary, we have less polluted water and air so better quality of life, protect biodiversity, all these things are good regardless of the global warming theory…

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    Mute karla carroll
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:13 PM

    It’s snowed in april before, as long as it’s not showing in July and august were good…

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    Mute Tony Skillington
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:15 PM

    Problem is karla…in June and July it just rains and rains and rains….

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    Mute Mr mc
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:16 PM

    *We are or we’re

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    Mute Mr mc
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:17 PM

    Plus showing?

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    Mute karla carroll
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:21 PM

    Point being if it snowed in July/august then we would know for sure the climate is f****d. Rain is normal for us in summer…..

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:10 PM

    In 1963 up till May/June. Scary thought!

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    Mute On Raglan Road
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:19 PM

    Mr mc Shakespeare :) :)

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    Mute Eric De Red
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:10 PM

    Weather science is still in its infancy. While it seems reasonable that the increase in carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is affecting the climate, claims that today’s weather can be explained by this does no favours to the climate change argument. It wasn’t too long ago that we were all warned that Europe would become a desert and we would grow grapes in Ireland.

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    Mute Karolyn Cassidy
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:52 PM

    I live grapes

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    Mute Karolyn Cassidy
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:53 PM

    *love

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    Mute Joseph Gi
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 1:18 PM

    Agreed Shane.
     
    If climate science were able to predict this outcome, that’s one thing, coming up with an explanation after the fact, one that just happens to back up your overarching theory (of global warming), this is simply not science, it’s pseudo-science.
     
    I would only believe this explanation if it were unequivocally stated before it actually was observed, and stated as the most likely outcome for Western Europe’s climate. This did not happen. Post-hoc explanations are usually a symptom that the capabilities of the particular discipline are far exceeded. In Ireland this would be called “chancing”.
     
    What’s worse is that before these Winters, the mildness of winters were taken as an example of Global Warming. The fact that winters are colder now are also taken as an example of Global Warming, despite the fact that these winters were the norm only a few decades ago. Logic suggests natural variability, not Global Warming.
     
    And for what it’s worth, I actually do thermal simulation for a living, and even used to work in the Green industry. It’s hard enough to get it right for something small and ubiquitous like a chicken or a room in a building. 
     
    I do not believe this explanation. It is possibly true, but the way it has been arrived at is highly dubious. I’ll believe it when they stake their reputation on a prediction. How about next year’s Winter? Predict next year’s winter, and make it non-vague, specific, with a narrow window of accuracy. Don’t just state “it’s going to be cold”, predict the average temperature in February 2014 within +/- 0.1°C.

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    Mute Seamus McGinty
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:22 PM

    Its the foreigners so it is.

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    Mute Daniel Murray
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:38 PM

    From looking at soil layers about 2000 years ago, it was in general much hotter. This is just the natural cycle of things being twisted for profit.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:07 PM

    97% of climate scientists disagree with you – are they all in on the ‘scam’?

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    Mute Daniel Murray
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:11 PM

    You could link plenty of sources I’m sure but I could do the same including the leaked emails stating that figures are being altered to back up the global warming theory. And take into account, it’s still a theory

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:59 PM

    Daniel, the ‘Climategate’ scientists have been totally vindicated.

    http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/debunking-misinformation-stolen-emails-climategate.html

    What you have to remember is that there are powerful vested interests at work here (mainly in the fossil fuel industry) who wish to undermine the scientific consensus that global warming is a reality. The same vested interests have also tried to muddy the waters by promoting their own ‘pseudo-studies’ trying to disprove global warming, however the crucial difference is that these studies are not peer-reviewed and do not appear in scientific journals.

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    Mute Mike Thomas
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:00 PM

    Its interesting to note that scientists have been banging on about “Globing Warming” for many years until a report claimed current temperatures have stayed pretty much stable, or in some cases dropped slightly. Then suddenly it gets a renamed to “Climate Change”, funny that.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:03 PM

    Mike
    Scientists have always used the term “Climate Change”, because although the net result is an overall rise in temperature, the local effects are totally unpredictable. The term “Global Warming” was invented by the media.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:25 PM

    Like it or not there is scientific consensus on this despite systematic attempts from vested interests to convince people otherwise:

    http://m.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html

    http://m.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

    Don’t fall for the fossil industry ploys!

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:26 PM

    I agree, those climate gate emails were taken out of context. Lets screw with data to get what we want can have so many different meanings and contexts especially in the industry known for integrity like for example Dr Mann and his famous hockey stick. Haha.

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:39 PM

    Mr Mattoid, the ‘concerned scientists’ website you quote speaks clearly of ‘global warming’. Is this a media construct perhaps, or is it that these are fake scientists? Or could it be that you are talking through your backside when stating that scientists never spoke of global warming? Which one is it?

    http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:59 PM

    Some light reading for you Mr Dom:

    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html

    Whilst you’re about it you could also try this – despite fossil fuel industry attempts to discredit him, Dr Manns hockey stick graph has been replicated several times and found to be correct:

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 11:11 PM

    Well of course Mr. Mattoid, global cooling and global dimming theories went tits up and global warming is going the same way, so best is to hedge one’s bets and call it climate change. Whatever happens, ‘I told you so’ wins. So, what’s the story with Concerned Scientists? They succumbed to media construct?

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 11:24 PM

    And in respect to Dr. Mann’s graph, other bearded chaps fiddled with data and came up with the same result is supposed to be a proof of something? Haha. What’s leaked AR5 got to say ’bout that?

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 11:37 PM

    Dom you obviously didn’t follow the link – scientists have always used the term ‘climate change’, with ‘global warming’ referring to a different phenomenon.
    The mass media applied the term ‘global warming’ to what scientists have always referred to as climate change.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 11:43 PM

    If you’d prefer to take the word of fossil industry con men who have a deeply rooted vested interest over ‘bearded chap’ scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying the subject and have collectively found massive amounts of corroborating evidence from various sources (despite having no particular agenda) then that’s your prerogative – can’t help you there.

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 12:02 AM

    I guess the media aren’t sophisticated enough for such scientific intricacies. It’s quite confusing though, in Ireland we were all looking forward to becoming like Ibiza due to global warming. I was also hoping the rising sea predictions will come true and my Blanchardstown gaff will become a beach property. But it seems Mr. Seargent and his Greens sorted this weather out with carbon taxes and we are safe from global warming and free to enjoy a bit of climate change. S

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 12:08 AM

    I prefer to take anything with a pinch of salt. I do not believe the scientists are interest-free and there is plenty of evidence to support my view. If you do, that is your problem buddy. Global warming / climate change / whatever has long since become a political issue – a pet project of the left. And we all know how the scientific / academia community vote, don’t we?

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    Mute Kevin Smyth
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 4:01 AM

    So, Daniel has decided to take the side of the oil companies and any other fossil fuel salesmen. Wise choice.
    Btw, gravity is a theory, in so much as we know its there and it’s speed, but not why? Do you believe in gravity?

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 5:11 AM

    Dom, yes climate change has long since become a political issue but not in the way that you and other climate change deniers believe, in fact quite the opposite.

    It became a political issue when it was found to be in the interests of one of the world’s most powerful industry lobbies to deny what all the scientific evidence was pointing to, as it was bad for business.

    This notion that it was somehow invented by politics and big business in order to screw the ordinary folk for more taxes is laughable, and smacks of conspiracy theory. Do you have any idea how many people would have to be in on this ‘scam’ for it to work, not least virtually the entire scientific community!?

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 5:33 AM

    BTW, like the tobacco industry the fossil fuel industry have launched orchestrated and systematic campaigns to mislead the public and you have apparently bought into their lies.

    It suits them down to the ground to have people like you believing that climate change is all makey uppey, because that was their intention all along!

    You should find all you need to know summed up nicely here (make yourself a cup of tea and read it slowly and carefully): http://scottvalentine.net/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/dunlap_cc_denial.302183828.pdf
    or you could just try googling “climate change industry denial” and see what you find.

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 6:19 AM

    You can’t shut up about the ‘vested interest’ and ‘fossil fuel industry’? What is it boyz, science beginning to wear off? Still no comment on leaked AR5, sure you informed types heard of it unlike us meatheads who read horoscope and whatnot.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 6:48 AM

    You mean the leak referred to here Dom?:

    “The isolation by climate sceptics of one sentence in the 14-chapter draft report was described as “completely ridiculous” by one of the report’s lead authors. Prof Steve Sherwood, a director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, told ABC Radio in Australia: “You could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite, that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible … It’s a pretty severe case of [cherry-picking], because even the sentence doesn’t say what [climate sceptics] say and certainly if you look at the context, we’re really saying the opposite.”

    This is precicely the type of orchestrated attempt to discredit and undermine the science that I’m referring to!

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 7:27 AM

    Sorry if you don’t like the references to vested interests Dom, but you should know what’s going on here – maybe you should open your eyes instead of allowing yourself to be duped so easily.

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 8:38 AM

    Well the observed temperatures are coming below AR4 estimates so we need to start building a case for this screw up. This is why a small leak here small leak there and soon the sun and cosmic rays and whatnot will be to blame.

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    Mute Daniel R
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:07 PM

    Economy is fu€ked and climate is
    Fu€ked. So is capitalism still the best system devised by man??

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    Mute Shane Wixted
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:11 PM

    Apparently yeah..

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    Mute Buckwheat MacMillan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:12 PM

    Indeed, vote Sinn Fein for warmer summers and less rain and snow

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    Mute chair man
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:21 PM

    ridiculous comment, equating voting for SF with improving weather conditions. the capitalism of global economies and the raping of the planets natural resources is going to have a profound affect on all our futures, rich and poor, North and South, climate change is only one small part of it

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    Mute Daniel Murray
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:45 PM

    joke [ johk ]noun1. something said or done to provoke laughter or cause amusement, as a witticism, a short and amusing anecdote, or a prankish act

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    Mute tisgrandsure
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:13 PM

    I wonder what kind of houses these scientists live in, what kind of cars do they drive? where do they vacation? or are they all gathered in a massive cave peddling away to generate power to do all these ‘tests’, let he without sin cast the first stone…said some fella 2000 years ago somewhere hot!

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    Mute Frankie Prendergast
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:58 PM

    It was the coldest Easter on record. I definitely think capitalism is at fault. It is fuelled by greed. “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”

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    Mute William Grogan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:14 PM

    You don’t understand the word “definite” very well do you?

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    Mute Frankie Prendergast
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    Apr 1st 2013, 11:36 PM

    Enlighten me…

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    Mute Henry Porter
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:59 PM

    The world is 4.5 billion years old and has been subject to huge variations in climate. In those terms 20 – 30 years is a blink of an eye and too small a sample on which to base any reliance or to provide sustainable evidence.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:16 PM

    I’m afraid you’re looking at that a bit arseways Henry – there’s plenty of scientific evidence of global climate change cycles taking place over periods of thousands of years, but the current rate of change is totally unprecedented as far as its possible to ascertain.

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    Mute Joseph Gi
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 2:06 PM

    Mattoid, the glaring problem with your statement that the “current rate of change is totally unprecedented” is that we don’t actually know that. We can reconstruct past climate, but the further back we go, the less accurate it gets, and the less time-wise resolution we have. Proxies are inherrently inaccurate. They’re meant to give you a general overview, but most definitely not detailed information. There is simply no replacing a thermometer. Basically, the further back in time we go, the more the rapid fluctuations in temperature disappear from the record. Therefore your statement is false.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 5th 2013, 4:38 PM

    Joseph,
    You are partially correct. Obviously the further we go back (eg. into the millions of years BP) the harder it is to isolate small timeframes of say 50 or 100 years, however the Holocene has been extensively studied in many different ways, and we can say with some degree of confidence that the current rate of change has not occurred at any other time in the past 11,000 years.

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    Mute Patrick McEneaney
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:45 PM

    I’m happy with this cold weather. Every where is nice and dry. It would be great if it meant we’d have a nice hot summer like 1995

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    Mute The Red Devil
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:20 PM

    Weather I believe runs in cycles, u ask some of the older generation they can tell if cycles of harsh winters, mild winters, when it snowed in May once-
    Carbon dioxide is definitely having an effect- melting ice doesn’t help either, and we have had runs of violent storms around the world before- but maybe the problems listed above just make things worse than before
    Are we heading down the Day after Tomorrow line- I don’t think so

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    Mute Claire O'Connor
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:26 PM

    I think you’re right. Apparently last month was the coldest March in 50 years. Not the coldest ever!!!

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:43 PM

    There you go fellas. Temperatures go up – it’s goal warming. Temperatures go down – it’s global warming. The environmental scientists not only have their cakes, they are also choking on them.

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    Mute Mjhint
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:51 PM

    Anyone denying climate change has a lot to catch up on. The data is there we are warming our planet to the extent we may affect the quality of life on it. We have however made some positive changes in the EU & the US as regards emissions although not enough. We need the chinese & others to come on board & population control needs to move up the agenda. Are we shocked we have damaged the planet? We have tapped into all the energy sources around the world. To give you an idea of how much we affect the planet, after 911 the US closed its airspace & the planet cooled down during this by I think a half a degree. This data is available & has been clarified. Its time we grew up.,We need to take responsibilty for this pale blue dot.

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    Mute Mick Curtin
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:00 PM

    While I agree with reducing emissions in general, the ‘theories’ are hype. And how post 9-11 air traffic reduction reduced global temps – get off it!

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    Mute Mjhint
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:11 PM

    Do your research. Im not a scientist I just listen to what they say. Why would scientist lie about science. Sooner or later the lies will be proven & scientist discredited. Darwin is still called a lier today & he theory has stood the test of time. The same for Einstein. I listen to scientist like Dawkins, Strauss & many more like these great minds. I have no reason to doubt them as they have done so much for us. They believe in climate change & so do I.

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    Mute tisgrandsure
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:37 PM

    can’t wait to start cutting turf! love the shtuff! nice and toasty in this weather. :)

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    Mute Dec Rowe
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    Apr 1st 2013, 9:55 PM

    Climate change is real and it is natural! We may have the ability to alter how it changed but it will change regardless!

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    Mute Eleen
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 8:55 AM

    Mijhint “Why would scientist lie about science.” – you shouldn’t blindly follow anybody, even the greatest minds were not always correct. Scientists are humans and subject to the same pressures as the rest of us, some of them might have ulterior motives.

    I’m not refuting global warming at all btw.

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    Mute Daniel Dunne
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 6:15 PM

    MJHINT – Population control? Hmmm, lets start the cull with you.

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    Mute Mike Trivette
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:51 PM

    What would the weather be like if there was “global cooling”? Have we all quit thinking at all????

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    Mute Karolyn Cassidy
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:50 PM

    Ice age?

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    Mute Dave Harris
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 12:34 AM

    Has everybody forgotten the panic that another ice age was coming that was the buzz in the 70′s?
    Its like chicken little all this panic is

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    Mute GraftonStPhonebox
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:56 PM

    Are there still people out there who believe in global warming ? Tsch.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:11 PM

    Yes, the scientific community who have spent their lives studying it and who use the term ‘climate change’ (the term ‘global warming’ is a media construct).

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    Mute Dom Morgan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:00 PM

    Ah yes, climate change. This came after global cooling, global dimming and then global warming. Climate change is a new phenomenon which depicts today’s changing climate as opposed to eons of rather unchanging climate enjoyed before we put up industrial chimneys up 150 years ago. Takes a lifetime of study to figure that one out.

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    Mute Kevin Smyth
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 4:17 AM

    It’s funny when you hear people scoff at the term ‘global warming’ because they felt cold on the previous Tuesday.
    Would the deniers prefer it if scientists just closed their eyes and hoped for the best?
    It must be irritating and disheartening for those who specialize in scientific fields, with years of work and research, only to have to listen to some meat-head babble on about how it’s all ‘made up’. Simple folk, who read their horoscope and watch singing competitions on tv.

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    Mute John Deegan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:40 PM

    The scientific consensus overwhelmingly points to anthropogenic global warming. There simply isn’t an argument in the scientific community regarding this (of course it doesn’t mean you cant find some “expert” to refute it). Indeed, the evidence shows it’s happening faster than originally predicted. What’s interesting in this article is the attempt at “balance” at the end where some smoke is blown into the air about “more evidence” required.
    Thats nonsense. It really is amazing that a large portion of people in the west actually believe its debatable that global warming is related to human activity. It’s a bit like how society understood the connection between smoking cigarettes and dying quickly back in the 1950s. The only thing the jury is out on is whether enough humans understand what is causing global warming before it’s too late.

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    Mute Mick Curtin
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:37 PM

    Who believes this tosh? We live in Hibernia ( winterland ), shouldn’t we be accustomed to the vagaries of our climate in the northern hemisphere?!
    Climate has always ‘changed’. The global warming brigade shifted to climate change and attempted to prep the world for green taxes.
    It is April fools day after all.

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    Mute Dermot McNally
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:55 PM

    I cant get my head around ordinary people who think that “Climate Change” is all made up by scientists to “prep the world for green taxes?” – as if governments need a reason to tax us?! And as if scientists have alot to gain by telling us what they think?
    From my point of view a simple review of basic data would suggest we have ALOT more to loose if Climate Change is true than is the contrary… if there is no climate change, what has changed?
    Err on the side of caution…

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    Mute Dec Rowe
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    Apr 1st 2013, 9:52 PM

    There will always be people who will be fooled by the system and there will always be the ones who see the truth…

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 6:06 AM

    Absolutely right Dec, and in this case ‘the system’ is the corporatocracy with their “global warming is all bunkum” agenda.

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    Mute Helen Farrell
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:20 PM

    It would only take 50 years to fully glaciate the N hemisphere should the earth swing into glacial-mode; something that is already overdue according to the Earth’s glacial cycles.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:04 PM

    Where did you get that nugget from?

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:14 PM

    Mattoid. The Malinkovsky effect. Something to do with the eliptical orbit of the earth round the sun I think. And we are overdue some nasties. An ice age is one and the flipping of the earth’s magnetic field is another. Google them. There should be some good articles out there.

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    Mute Little Jim
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:23 PM

    Yes, the magnetic field is long overdue to flip.
    What happens then is mainly guesswork though.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:41 PM

    Mary, I think you must be referring to Milankovitch cycles, which take place over thousands of years not the 50 years suggested by Helen.

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    Mute Helen Farrell
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:51 PM

    From a glacial geomorphologist lecturer, who held a PhD, in UCD, in response to a question I asked in 1992 while studying Geography. My question was exactly ‘how long would it take for the Earth to fully gravitate should it decide to swing into glaciation’? His answer, ’50 years. The class went ‘oooh’. I had assumed it would take a couple of hundred years.

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:53 PM

    Yes the Milankovitch effect is a many thousand year cycle but depending on whereethe earth is in the cycle and other climatic and solar phenomena an ice age can occur very quickly though I wouldn’t have thought it would be as quick as 50years

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    Mute Mr mc
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:21 PM

    Climate change is expanding Antarctica’s sea ice, according to a scientific study in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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    Mute Marko Burns
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:20 PM

    Gimme rain anyday. Ireland ain’t built for this arctic cold.

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    Mute Padriag O'Utraged
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:41 PM

    About time, the alpine winters have been pretty shite for the last 10 years, was worried the offspring would miss out on decent holidays altogether.

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    Mute Sean Gregan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 5:39 PM

    This would be a great little country if we had a retractable roof over us…

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    Mute Catherine Lonergan
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:03 PM

    No chen trailing abd geo engineering is whats causing it

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    Mute Derek Durkin
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    Apr 1st 2013, 8:05 PM

    Geo-enginerring is taking place over pretty much every country in the world everyday at the moment. It’s official purpose is to combat global warming. There is plenty of information on it on government websites and the guardian have a section online devoted to it.

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    Mute Joey Potatoes
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:44 PM

    It’s all true… SUV driving mammoths caused the ice age… Laughing my spud arse off!

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    Mute Jack Bowden
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 12:59 AM

    I miss the summer of 1995. It was sunny for 3 months and I was off school. Now we’ve had 7 bad summers in a row. I honestly can’t remember what a warm sunny day felt like at this stage.
    We were told by the media in 1995 that we can expect many more long hot summers with droughts and water shortages in summer due to global warming. Hadn’t gone to plan.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 6:11 AM

    You might have been told that by the media, but science has always been much more cautious about predicting the precise localised effects of climate change and has always said that some areas will get colder, some warmer, some wetter, some drier, some windier etc….

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    Mute big shmoke
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:42 PM

    Must be a glitch in my previous post as “God isn’t angry” was merely the first 3 words of it… Must be a technical fault or an error on my part as there’s no way that the journal would censor a post that was purely scientific in content.

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    Mute Kevin Twomey
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    Apr 1st 2013, 9:57 PM

    Last year it was is in the high 20s in march. It’s also been very mild in the height of Winter the past two years. Slight knee jerk reaction I think.

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    Mute John Deane
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:06 PM

    We are getting this weather because God is angry.

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    Mute tisgrandsure
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:09 PM

    ha?

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:57 PM

    Now that is a really disquieting thought Helen. Getting shivers (excuse the pun)down my spine thinking about that!

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    Mute Dec Rowe
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    Apr 1st 2013, 9:49 PM

    Thor, Thor is angry!

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Apr 1st 2013, 9:58 PM

    Yes, Dec,Thor and Zeus/Jupiter. We’re being smitten with a great smite for foresaking the old gods and taking up with this new-fangled one-god religion. This is what we get for putting all our theological eggs in the one basket! ;-)))

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    Mute Dec Rowe
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:17 PM

    You have a basket? Oh wait, I’ve one left over from the Easter bunny! In you go Thor and the rest of you! ;)

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    Mute Paul Wallace
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    Apr 1st 2013, 10:30 PM

    SCAM

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    Mute big shmoke
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:22 PM

    God isn’t angry

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    Mute Sheik Yahbouti
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    Apr 1st 2013, 7:23 PM

    Yes, it is.

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    Mute Lee Casey
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 6:35 AM

    Climate scientists dont get paid for stayin quiet. Fact

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 7:24 AM

    Actually bona fide climate scientists get paid to carry out studies regardless of the conclusions.

    The only ones that get paid to provide a specific conclusion (ie. that there is no such thing as ‘global warming’) are those funded by the fossil fuel industry, and hardly any of their studies are peer-reviewed.

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    Mute Joseph Gi
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    Apr 3rd 2013, 10:10 AM

    In Mattoid’s world, anybody who disagrees with him has been paid for by the oil industry. Get your tin foil hats out folks.

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 3rd 2013, 10:44 AM

    If you knew me from reading all my posts on other threads you’d know that I’m the last person to be wearing a tinfoil hat, but in this case the evidence is clear.

    97% of climate scientists recognise anthropomorphic climate change as having been proven beyond doubt and the debate has now moved on from whether or not it is a reality to precisely what environmental effects it could produce in the future and what (if anything) can be done to ameliorate those effects.

    This is more than a little inconvenient for the fossil fuel industry, and like the smoking industry before it, it has engaged in an orchestrated campaign to discredit the science and sow seeds of doubt in the minds of the general public (it has obviously succeeded with some of the commenters on this thread).

    All this is well documented if you look for it.

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    Mute Joseph Gi
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    Apr 3rd 2013, 12:25 PM

    Quoting factoids like this is problematic.
     
    First of all, it’s a classic logical fallacy. Convince people with simple logic not popularity contests.
     
    Second of all, it reduces the debate to an imbecillic level. You paint the debate as non-existing and as having moved on, even though debate is thriving. The theory is that (a) the planet’s climate is warming though non-uniformly, (b) that human activity is behind it, notably the greenhouse effect, and that it manifests itself by (c) more extreme weather patterns, (d) earthquakes, (e) rising sea levels and disappearing ice cover. The way you paint it, 97% of climate scientists believe all of the above. This is utter nonsense. These are scientists, not church priests. Some believe (a) but not (e). Some believe (b) partially but that there is a lot we don’t know and can’t establish where one ends and another one begins. Some even reject (a) as unknowable but believe the rest anyway. You paint it as uniform when it is anything but.
     
    Such arguments like “97% agree” serve to kill debate and bully people into compliance. If 97% agree (and they don’t anyway), what do the 3% think?
      
    You, yourself, should look up falsifiability, most important concept in science. If it’s falsifiable and it has been falsified, then the theory is incomplete (or junk). If it can’t be falsifiable, it’s not science, it’s pseudo-science, like marxist theory and astrology. Not being able to make a model than predicts future outcomes means the theory is falsified. If you don’t accept this as a way of falsifying the theory, then unless another way to falsify the theory specified then the theory is pseudo-science.

    PS: I am a thermodynamicist by profession and do thermal simulation for a living in the Green Industry

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    Mute Joseph Gi
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    Apr 3rd 2013, 1:15 PM

    And another thing, regarding sowing doubt.

    We’re scientists not church priests, we don’t do dogma very well. We do doubt very well though. Any scientist who doesn’t harshly and severely doubt even his own work shouldn’t be working as a scientist. Doubt is a wonderful thing. There is no such thing as sowing doubt in science, it’s the normal behaviour you’re expected to partake in.

    This is important in order to demarcate between thought and fact. There is what scientists think and what scientists know, and the two are very different. Ask a scientist their opinion on a contentious topic, and they’ll tell you. However neither is it proven, nor can it be used as an argument in debate.

    It becomes proven and fact IF AND ONLY IF it’s capable of making reliable and accurate predictions. Everything else is just opinion, however informed it is, and however certain some people are. It all means we don’t know if there is man made global warming, nor do we know if there isn’t man made global warming.

    The real mystery for me is how we have lost sight of such a crucial difference.

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    Mute Joseph Gi
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    Apr 3rd 2013, 2:10 PM

    One last thing, regarding the vested interests and the oil industry. The incessant claims that any criticism of the theory are liars paid for by the oil industry, this is perhaps one of the most damaging things happening to science right now. It kills debate, and then you will turn and say “the debate is settled”, because you labeled the dissenters as liars and corrupt.

    There are indeed vested interests, and it’s important to bear that in mind and not believe everything. However by now there are multiple vested interests. The Green Industry is a vested interest. Some large environmentalist organisations have morphed into a highly politicised, militant (and mostly science illiterate) vested interest. Climate science and the large and varied public funds available for research is also a vested interest. With all that politicisation going on, climate science is near irretrievably damaged.

    It’s also quite obvious that the Irish government is exploiting global warming to make excuses for the sad state of Irish infrastructure, i.e. severe but hardly exceptional rainfall causing record flooding, but no… it’s not the government’s fault, it’s global warming!

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 5th 2013, 4:12 PM

    Well I’m glad to hear that you don’t do dogma Joseph, but its pretty ironic that you then go on to launch an attack on the Irish Government and environmental organisations in your very next post – quite an impressive performance for a scientist who doesn’t engage in dogma! Presumably you don’t include insulting others with a different view by accusing them of wearing tinfoil hats in your definition of dogma either?

    So you’re a thermodynamicist? Good for you. I studied environmental science many years ago, so that makes neither of us an expert in climatology, so how about we defer to the expertise of those who specialise in the subject and publish their work in peer-reviewed journals?

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 5th 2013, 4:13 PM

    I stand by my assertion that 97% of leading climatologists believe that the case for anthropogenic climate change is compelling (by the way, I never claimed that all climatologists were agreed on every aspect of climate change, as you seem to suggest). This is not a figure I plucked out of thin air, but is the conclusion of Doran et al in their survey of published climatologists:
    http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ssi/DoranEOS09.pdf
    If you have reason to disbelieve this perhaps you could forward your alternative references to back up your view?

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 5th 2013, 4:15 PM

    In addition, you could look at this document in which 18 of the world’s leading scientific societies set down their position on ACC:
    http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/ssi/climate-change-statement-from.pdf

    It might also serve you well to look at this review of published peer-reviewed science, which found that none (yes that’s right, not a single one) of the 928 papers published during the review period found that there was no evidence for ACC:
    http://m.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full

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    Mute mattoid
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    Apr 5th 2013, 4:15 PM

    If that’s not enough, you could look here for further links illustrating the scientific consensus on this subject:
    http://m.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html

    You’re absolutely right that science is excellent at doubt, and also has the humility to admit that it was wrong when further evidence comes to light. Maybe this will happen in the future, but as it stands the vast majority of peer-reviewed evidence supports the existence of human-induced climate change, as referenced above.

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    Mute Karl-Lee Kavanagh
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 3:04 AM

    IT’S THE COWS FAULT!!!
    you fool’s !

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    Mute Socrates
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    Apr 1st 2013, 6:37 PM

    No

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    Mute Karl-Lee Kavanagh
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    Apr 2nd 2013, 3:04 AM

    IT’S THE COWS FAULT !!!
    You Fools !

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