http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,,1267004,00.html

I find your report somewhat questional when your data indicates that the Carbon levels occur every 135,000 Years

It's all about oil. There are alternatives.There must be political will to make changes now. Read about the politics of oil in It's The Crude, Dude by Linda McQuaig

Green house gas problem is not new. However, so far no measures have been taken by the policy makers to reduce/ control their emmissions in any of the country. More efforts have been made to find out that who is to be blamed, rather than to come out that we are the first to control our emissions.

The climate is permanent changing, but we can't forecast the future. Only we can speculate. The world be no more, because of wars, terrorist, than warm-up climate.

Thirty years ago peaple didn't want to here the warnigs against the climate change. Nowerdays it becomes nearly a hysteric hype to write everyday a new horror-vision about it whith the typical toch as if is was a new sensation. Althogh it is a well known and really not new problem. I ask me: Why are people so?

The US energy / big oil lobby has toiled long and hard to prevent US citizens from realizing the threat and taking any action to cut our production of CO2. Now we are on the brink of having to deal with dire consequences, and it may just be too late. I'm looking forward to models of predicted consequences.

Can the world unite in the face of a common global enemy (climate change, sea level rise) and fight a concerted war (without guns) to reduce global warming? It can be done!
Or does mankind remain divided by petty local interests and selfish short term economic targets, resorting to the old adage: "apres nous la deluge!"

Mankind is at a road fork, which way do we go?

From all my graduate courses in geology its my understanding that the planet should be warming since its in the last stages of an ice age. Since when does a consensus confirm a scientific fact? I must of missed that class.

As a result of sharply deteriorating political conditions in the region, Unocal, which serves as the development manager for the Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline consortium, has suspended all activities involving the proposed pipeline project in Afghanistan

http://www.flyveplan.dk

Man has found solutions for many threatens that he has faced, the economic system has organized the exchange of values but, even though it has put end to the slavery ages, the resources of this wonderful planet are still distributed in a socioeconomic basis, The food production is sorted, the best quality for the highest class, .... The poor people have to sacrifice; taxes can’t break the consumption habits.
But nowadays the criteria is different, not only the poor people have to sacrifice, all have to realize that the same sunrays are becoming a real cancer threat to anyone irrespective of race colour or religion, the same air that animals breathe may pass through the lungs of the highest class people, risks are threatening everyone, no one is safe, all must work to purify our earth’s atmosphere, all must show care and take action, all must think about the coming generation, all must boycott any product that produces contamination, all must go back to the mother nature, preach and sacrifice for that, before it’s too late.

[Editor's note: this post has been edited for length]

I am somewhat confused on the correspondence between carbon dioxide concentration and radiative forcing (Figure SPM-1). Are supporting evidences based mainly on assocaitions or are there strong evidences of causality (cf. Sir Austin Bradford Hill criteria)?

Facts are that the global temperature is rising, CO2 concentration has also risen and both are likely to rise further. There is also indisputable evidence that global temperature has varied widely over past millennia.
However, following should be born in mind: by far the greatest amount of CO2 is released by the world’s oceans; they are also the largest absorbers. It should not be assumed that both sides of this process are always in an equilibrium. The release of CO2 is not, but its absorption may be affected by the Sun.
Increased UV and gamma radiations are reaching the oceans’ surface during periods of high sunspot activity. There are also charged particles emanating either from solar or galactic activity. All of these to a certain degree damage living cells. UV and gamma radiation have caused increase in skin cancers, while charged particles can have disastrous effect on communications, power grids, satellites and astronauts working in space etc. Clouds provide protection from UV rays, Van-Allen belt provides partial protection from charged particles and the atmosphere to some extent from gamma rays.
If solar activity is on increase (as it has been since 1860-s) then amount of all 3 kinds of radiation would be on increase. Coincidently, the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field has been decaying during same period (61 to 54 micro Tesla) by about 11%, so radiation protection of Van-Allen belt has also been reduced.
This increase of the harmful radiation is causing reduction bio-mass of the oceans’ surface phytoplankton, the largest absorber of CO2 on the Earth’s surface, either through direct destruction of its cells or process of sterilisation by irradiation. Result of this is a reduced uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere and rising in the ‘green-house’ effect. There are already quantifiable evaluations of reduction in the efficiency of phytoplankton. Reverse process takes place during reductions in the solar activity causing global cooling end may even trigger onset of ice age (eg. solar activity was at a minimum between 1650-1710 causing considerable cooling known as 'Little Ice Age').
M. Vukcevic

I assume this is a typo in paragraph 6:

"...between 9 and 88 millimetres by 2100."

(Not cm?)

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070205/full/445580a.html

Thanks

One grossly overlooked factor in global warming is the astronomical increase in electromagnetic frequency radiation that hugely contributes to greenhouse effects. We think because we cannot see it, it must be inocuous, but, unfortunately, ill effects occur at every level - from the cell to the atmosphere. The levels of radiation generated by the use of WiFi and cellular devices has created a blanket of radiation never experienced before. Any natural events precipitating comparable levels were just that. Natural events.

Letter to Nature (sent Feb. 9, but not accepted for publication)
Michael Hopkin writes about an illusionary “consensus” on the IPCC report (Nature Feb. 6, 2007). But a comparison of model-predicted with observed patterns of warming contradicts the major IPCC conclusion that the cause of current warming is “very likely” human. Hopkin implies that the “apparent discrepancy between warming at Earth's surface and temperatures in Earth's lower atmosphere” has been resolved. Not true. The key document is the recent report of the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), which is based on best current information. It can be found at www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm
In spite of a poorly worded Executive Summary, the disparity between tropospheric and surface temperature trends is quite apparent in the report itself. Greenhouse models (see Fig. 1.3F) indicate that the tropics provide the most sensitive location for their validation; trends there increase strongly with altitude, peaking at around 10 kilometers. Actual observations, however, show the opposite: flat or even decreasing tropospheric trend values (see Fig. 3.7 and also Fig. 5.7E). This disparity is demonstrated most strikingly in Figure 5.4G, which shows the difference between surface and troposphere trends for a collection of models (displayed as a histogram) and for balloon and satellite data.
Allowing for uncertainties in the data and for imperfect models, there is only one valid conclusion from this failure of greenhouse models to explain the observations: The human contribution to global warming is still quite small, so that natural climate factors are dominant.
Atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service. His most recent book is “Unstoppable Global Warming—Every 1500 Years”
**************************************

1Einstein.

The assumption of "global warming" fans is: global warming is caused by humans.
Ok, I will buy the assumption. If 6 billion humans cause Earth to warm by X amount, will 12 billion humans cause the Earth to warm by 2X amount; conversely will reducing human population by 1/2 reduce global warming by 1/2?

Also, because of global warming we are now able to grow more food, and have large populations living in locations such as London and New York. Ten thousand years ago these locations were under ice.

In collusion, the Associated Press sites global warming as the cause of no snow in Tokyo; but the record snow fall in New York is NOT claimed to be caused by global cooling.

In the section “Climate change 2007: Climate sceptics switch focus to economics”, which is part of the of Nature's Climate Change 2007 special, the author ignored recent works opposing his point of view. There are several evidences that the Sun-Earth system have been changing during last century. Furthermore, plausible mechanisms linking the physical process in the magnetosphere, ionosphere and upper atmosphere to the tropospheric process have been proposed. Key elements in this chain are the NOx production and downward convection in the auroral region and/or in the southern hemisphere magnetic anomaly.

Recently, [Usoskin, et al., 2005] made observations suggesting the variation in the cosmic ray flux entering Earth’s atmosphere, is due to a combination of solar modulation and geomagnetic shielding. The latter could add a long-term trend to the varying solar signal. They compared 1000-year reconstructions of sunspot numbers and cosmic ray flux, derived from cosmogenic isotope dates, with air temperature history in the Northern hemisphere. They observed higher temperatures during periods of intense solar activity. In addition, they report that three different statistical tests consistently indicate that the long-term trends in the temperature correlate better with cosmic rays than with sunspot numbers. This correlation suggests that the influence of the geomagnetic field strength, could explain why cosmic ray flux correlates better with the temperature rather than solar activity.

[Vieira and da Silva, 2006] have shown that the effects produced by clouds on the net radiative flux over the southern Pacific Ocean, are related to the intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field. Over the inner region of the Southern Hemisphere Magnetic Anomaly (SHMA), a cooling effect of approximately 18 W/m2 is observed, compared to a heating effect of approximately 20 W/m2 over the outer region. They have also shown that the variability of the net radiative flux is correlated to cosmic rays flux in the inner region of the SHMA. The correlation was also observed to increase in the inner region of the magnetic anomaly.

Vieira and da Silva have suggested that the coupling mechanism may be linked to the ozone depletion in the lower mesosphere, and in the upper stratosphere of the SHMA region. The ozone depletion has been observed in the lower mesosphere and upper stratosphere during large solar storms in the south polar regions [Jackman, et al., 2005]. The effects of changes in the solar ultra-violet emission on ozone levels in the stratosphere has also been considered as a candidate to explain the link between solar activity and its effects on the climate [Haigh, 2003; Matthes, et al., 2004]. Numerical experiments have shown slight changes to the stratospheric diffusion resulted in quite different tropospheric circulations, when compared to unperturbed conditions [Arnold and Robinson, 2001; Boville, 1984; Haigh, 2003; Polvani and Kushner, 2002].

If the solar activity modulates the mesospheric and stratospheric, temperature and dynamics in this way, most of the observed correlations between cosmic rays and cloud coverage, at least in the south Pacific, may be due to changes in the circulation patterns [Marsh and Svensmark, 2000; Svensmark and FriisChristensen, 1997]. This view is opposed to atmospheric ionization, and changes in the atmospheric electric field [e.g., Carslaw, et al., 2002; Harrison and Carslaw, 2003, and references therein].

[Vieira and da Silva, 2006] have proposed that as the SHMA is drifting westward, a westward drift in the cloud cover, and their corresponding effects on the radiative flux will be observed. They suggested that the main consequences of the drift may be an increase in the area over the Pacific with an intense negative forcing and changes in the atmospheric circulation. This hypothesis was investigated by [Vieira et al. 2007]. They have shown evidence of an association between the westward drift of the SHMA and the atmospheric circulation over the period 1950 to 2000. A correlation between increasing sea-level pressure (SLP) in the tropical Pacific, and decreasing magnetic field intensity (B) is observed. This indicates that the physical processes in the magnetosphere, ionosphere and upper atmosphere are mapped downward to the Earth’s surface. The increase in the SLP gradient across the tropical Pacific is consistent with numerical experiments, in which present sea-surface temperature distributions are perturbed proportionally to the variation of the magnetic field intensity.

The magnetic anomaly is a region of low intensity magnetic field over South America and the adjoin oceans. The westward drift of the SHMA is caused by changes in the current systems produced by the Earth’s core. As the magnetospheric, ionospheric and upper atmospheric processes are controlled by the Earth’s magnetic field configuration, and changes to this configuration affect the Earth’s atmosphere. The results presented here support the hypothesis, that systematic changes in the tropical Pacific atmospheric circulation could be related to changes in the configuration of the Earth’s magnetic field, and space weather processes.

The results presented by [Vieira et al. 2007] agree with the observation from [Usoskin, et al., 2005], that changes in the magnetic field configuration could add a long-term trend to the received varying solar signal, and this would support a direct link between solar activity and its effects on the climate. It is quite conceivable that several mechanisms already proposed to explain the link of solar variability to climate, such as ozone changes in radiative forcing, energetic particles and cosmic rays, could all contribute to varying extents to the observed patterns.

[Vieira et al. 2007] have also observed that high cloud patterns associated with the high convection of the SPCZ are related to the intensity of the magnetic field. This region of high convection is driven by the anti-cyclonic activity in the southeast Pacific. They suggested that changes in the thermal structure of the atmosphere due to changes of the ozone abundance in the magnetic anomaly region and/or in auroral region could be related to the observed patterns. One possible chain of processes is:

Total solar irradiance (or specific wavelength) + highly energetic prótons + particle precipitation in the auroral region/magnetic anomaly à stratospheric and mesospheric ozone changes (NOx production and downward convection)à stratospheric and mesospheric temperature à stratospheric dynamics à tropospheric dynamics à clouds effects in the Southern Hemisphere à sea-surface temperature à feedbacks.

Key elements in this chain are the NOx production and downward convection. The NOx is one of the main loss mechanisms of stratospheric ozone. The main source of global stratospheric NOx (NO+NO2) is oxidation of N2O that is transported up from the troposphere. A secondary source is energetic particle precipitation (EPP). The higher the energy of the precipitating particle, the lower in altitude the energy is deposited and more rare its occurrence [e.g.,Randall, et al., 2005; Randall, et al., 2006, and references therein]. Asymmetries in the NOx production in the upper atmosphere auroral region, due to the configuration of the Earth’s magnetic field was reported by [Baker, et al., 2001; Barth, et al., 2002; Barth, et al., 2003].

Based on the analysis presented here, it is not possible to discount the association between the westward drift of the SHMA and changes in the atmospheric circulation in the equatorial Pacific. The observations reported here do not exclude the interpretation proposed by other authors, or the influence of the cosmic rays on cloud formation [De Jager and Usoskin, 2006; Harrison and Stephenson, 2006; Palle, et al., 2004; Usoskin, et al., 2004].

In this way, I can not agree that "Their argument continues to shift", as says Naomi Oreskes, During last few years we have improved our understanding about the Sun-Earth system based on ground and space based observations, as well as, on the Sun-Earth system modeling. It is not possible to ignore the efforts of the scientific community to reduce the uncertainties about the natural and anthropogenic forcing of the climate change. Several international conferences have been providing forums to discuss this theme, such as the coming AGU 2007 Joint Assembly, in Acapulco, Mexico, which has at least two sections dedicated to discuss coupling of the solar activity to Earth’s climate: (1) session GP14 "Solar activity, geomagnetic field, Earth rotation rate and climate"; and, (2) Session A09 "Connecting Space and Atmospheric Sciences to Accelerate Progress in Addressing Atmospheric Coupling and Climate Variability."

While a healthy dose of skepticism on the global warming issue helps to keep the non-skeptics among us on our toes, I wish the skeptics would at least try to answer a simple question: what is happening to the heat?

The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been monitored ad nauseam for decades now. We know their rate of increase. Since they are molecules with more than two atoms, they absorb heat radiation and re-emit it down to the surface. This is not complex difficult science - it is physical chemistry 101. If this excess heat is not warming the surface, what is it doing?

Or look at it another way. Our planet has to exist in radiative balance with the radiation from the sun (on long time scales), meaning that the heat coming in from the sun has to balance the heat being lost by radiation. Even clouds don't make much difference, but that is difficult science, so I won't pursue it here. If we interpose a blanket of greenhouse gases between us and the sun, the outward heat radiation drops. Since the sun's radiation reaching the surface is very little affected, the surface must warm up to reach the required balance. This again is very simple science.

I feel that the general public have to some extent been misled into thinking that the whole global warming issue is very complex, which is certainly true of the detailed response to the greenhouse effects, but in fact it is a rather simple concept. The skeptics apparently don't feel any need to tell the rest of us just what is wrong with the science? Of course it is much easier just to quibble about the details of various observations and their interpretation. With one or two notable exceptions they steer well away from answering the basic very simple scientific questions. The greenhouse gases radiate heat. The heat reaches the surface. Extra heat produces extra warmth. This was the simple concept behind the warning of Arrhenius and others dating from the 19th century, and no greenhouse skeptic has attempted to tell us what is wrong with it.

Having regard to all of the evidence, both for and against, it really is time people stopped arguing about how and started thinking about what to do. Because at no time in history have we produced evidence to show such rapid climate change as this, and we know that most species are just not able to adapt this fast. Check out current extinction rates - what is a comparable endpoint? Worst case scenario - perhaps an end-Permian extinction? It is not who caused it, but how fast it is that will endanger our planet.

So, "Leading politicians agree a new proposal to tackle climate change at US meeting." It looks to me like another bout of posturing. After all, we all know that very little can actually be proven by science, and the 'scientific evidence' on global warming appears to have been interpreted so far by politicians mainly by their political leaning... The fact that climate on Earth is not costant has been supported by evidence, e.g., (taken from Wikipedia) "The Little Ice Age brought bitterly cold winters to many parts of the world, but is most thoroughly documented in Europe and North America. In the mid-17th century, glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced, gradually engulfing farms and crushing entire villages. The River Thames and the canals and rivers of the Netherlands often froze over during the winter, and people skated and even held frost fairs on the ice. The first Thames freeze was in 1607; the last in 1814, although changes to the bridges and the addition of an embankment affected the river flow and and depth, hence the possibility of freezes. The freeze of the Golden Horn and the southern section of the Bosphorus took place in 1622." And even the Bible story seems to describe an extensive global warming... Let's admit it, we do not know what controls changes in global weather, so let's stop playing political games. There are enough other good reasons to control our environment and keep it clean!

In the Nature's Climate Change 2007 special (February 8 2007) Declan Butler(1) explored the energy-saving potential of intelligent electrical grid, and Zoë Corbyn(2) investigated how labs can cut their energy use. We want to add, that the potential for energy-saving in the agricultural sector is also huge. The Haber-Bosch process, to reduce N2 into NH3, important for crop nutrition, accounts for approximate 2-3% of global energy consumption(3). Although industrial N reduction is a significant contribution to CO2 emissions, concern should also be whether food security is endangered in an energy limited future if fertilizers become more expensive. The oldest alternative ‘biotechnology’ to the Haber-Bosch process is the biological N2 fixation, which occurs as a symbiosis between leguminous plants and rhizobial bacteria. Today, biological N2 fixation is largely restricted to organic farming, while conventional farming depends largely on mineral fertilizer. The major reason for this split is that farming using Biological N Fixation (BNF) is far more challenging than that based on mineral fertilizer. BNF can be quite efficient; a first year clover-grass under temperate conditions can fix about 300 kg N ha-1. The challenge with BNF is not N fixation as such, but the redistribution of N from legumes to the non-legumes within farming and cropping systems.

Farms with animal or milk production use animal manure to redistribute biologically fixed N between crops within the crop rotation. However, animal slurry contains approximately one third of its N bound in organic forms, which reduces the plant N use efficiency compared to mineral N fertilizer. Moreover, animal slurry contains approximately 90-95 % water hence much energy is used in transporting water to the fields. New animal slurry separation technologies have the potential to reduce these problems. High technology separation equipment can separate the slurry into a highly concentrated NH3 fraction, water and a fibre fraction containing most of the organic carbon. Water from such equipment is clean enough to be discharged to the aquifers, thus avoiding the transport of water to the fields. The highly concentrated NH3 fraction has a crop N use efficiency comparable to that of industrial N fertilizer, and is just as easy to handle. The carbon in the fibre fraction can be used for various purposes, i.e. heat, electricity and refining to oil. Alternatively, it can be spread on low humus soils to improve their quality and thus sequester C.

The above example illustrates that intelligent technology can be found in the combination of technologies like BNF that has been used by humans for more than 300 years with new methods that improve the context of that technology for the modern world. Here we have presented a strategy for reducing energy use and CO2 emissions from the Haber-Bosch process and, at the same time, increasing food security in an energy limited future, by integrating biological N fixation with use of catch crops and modern animal slurry separation technology.

(1) Butler, D. Meters to manage the future. Nature 445, 586-588 (2007).
(2)Corbyn, Z. Experimenting with efficiency. Nature 445, 590-591 (2007).
(3) United Nations Environmental Programme - Technical report No 26 - Part 1: Mineral Fertilizer, Production and the Environment at www.fertilizer.org/ifa/publicat/pdf/part1.pdf (2007).

We take issue with the commentary by Pielke et al. (Nature 445: 597). The authors accuse mitigation advocates of incorrectly arguing that efforts on adaptation detract from mitigation. We agree that the argument is spurious. Yet, the authors make the opposite argument which we also take issue with: that mitigation detracts from adaptation. The notion that the UNFCCC allows investments in adaptation to be reduced by investments in mitigation is unfounded.

Both mitigation and adaptation are needed. Global warming threatens to destabilize ice sheets, causing sea level rise to rise for centuries. It also threatens to cause widespread disruption of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity. It is not clear how adaptation will offset these impacts. Thus, mitigation is needed to slow down global warming and avoid its worst effects.

As the authors note, adaptation is also needed because climate change is underway and further warming is inevitable. The climate change adaptation community has long recognized that effective adaptation has to address shortcomings in natural resource management as well as addressing the added risks introduced by climate change. This is not a diversion, but a necessary response to an unprecedented threat facing humanity.

Joel B. Smith
Stratus Consulting Inc.
Boulder, CO USA

Ian Burton
University of Toronto
Toronto

Saleemul Huq
International Institute for Environment and Development
London

Here's a link to a journal article that presents highlights of a study that uses one natural process (Earth Magnetic Field Variation) variable that can predict global temperatures 6 to 7 years in the future... And there's no one other variable that can do that.

http://www.gsaaj.org/articles/TempPaperv1n22007.pdf

The notion that carbon dioxide from recent human industrial activity is affecting global climate is at-best a fundraising ruse. There is virtually no statistical correlation between CO2 and global temperatures, in any of the timespan categories, in any period of Earth's history. Perhaps the most insidious fraud is the notion that the physical mechanism by which a gardener's greenhouse increases in temperature (via solar load/excitation upon interior atmospheric chemistry) is technically transferable to the Planet Earth system: No such mechanical tranference has EVER been established. The well-promoted but utterly unfounded notion that our planet is a "greenhouse," a notion that originates in-part from the now-proven incorrect assumptions about Venus, is crumbling as well. Start here: http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf Essential to the ruse, is a concoction that humans are to blame. Current work in cosmoclimatology will move far beyond the grammer-school level rants regarding CO2. What is needed is a re-invigoration of sincere work regarding human pollution of the soil, water, air, and mind. This implies that some will have to acquire "real work."