New answers tagged climate-change
-2
It is true that we don't understand climate change very well for the reasons you give in your question, namely that there are so many variables involved and some of them are unknowns. Indirect methods of assessing climate composition and temperature are reasonably accurate for the last few tens of thousands of years, but the further you go back, the more ...
0
Planting trees is a good thing provided it is done properly. In Britain we have some valuable habitats such as heathland, peatbog, and wetland where planting trees would do ecological damage. If for example you managed to put a small stand of trees in an area of wetland, that would encourage hawks and corvids to take up residence to the disadvantage of ...
2
There is no such thing as the 'Holmes' equation.
Comment: Holmes is the person that formulated this equation I has every right to name it as I please.
Could someone please validate the Holmes equation
There is no such thing as the 'Holmes' equation. To the ideal gas law
$$T=\frac{P\mu}{R\rho}$$
if P, ρ and μ
are known in order to 'predict' a temperature ...
0
The ink metaphor that @userLTK mentions seems to imply that you could, in fact, find gasses that would make the atmosphere more transparent to heat, in the same way that you could dilute a solution in order to make it less opaque. The additional gas doesn't have to to have "negative opacity", it just has to reduce the average opacity of the solution as a ...
10
I'm the scientist in the article; someone just saw this question and emailed me about it! (I'm on as a guest here since I don't have an account, so you'll hopefully trust it's me. Even if you don't believe it's me, I hope the answer will still be useful.)
It's entirely a safety issue. The best way to get around on the surface of the glaciers in this area is ...
4
A cyclone is nothing more than a low-pressure system. It can surely form in the North Atlantic; in fact, most low-pressure systems that reach Europe form in the North Atlantic.
You are probably thinking about a tropical cyclone, which indeed cannot form that far north. Among others, a tropical cyclone needs high sea temperatures (>27 C), which are usually ...
-2
No, it's not normal. Hurricanes and typhoons require sun-warmed seas like the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico to form, because that's where they get their energy from. When meteorologists talk of cyclones and anticyclones, they are talking about high pressure or low pressure weather systems, not hurricanes and typhoons. Storms can form that far north, but ...
6
Possibly the strongest human "fingerprint" on rising CO2 levels comes from the changing ratio of carbon isotopes.
Basically, there are three isotopes of carbon -- carbon atoms with varying weights of neutrons -- carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14. Carbon-12 and carbon-13 are stable and make up most of of the carbon in living things and the atmosphere. (I'm ...
-1
You could never have an estimate which was anything more than a wild guess masquerading as an estimate. To estimate the carbon in living vegetable matter alone would be hard enough, and result in a very inaccurate approximation, but to include the quantity in the Earth's crust as well could only be a wild and very inaccurate guess. The exact quantity of all ...
1
Climate change is a complicated subject which is difficult to predict with accuracy. The IPCC's predictions at least since their 3rd report (TAR) appear to be quite good, but good over the first few years or decade and a half vs good for predictions up to 2100 remains inexact and perhaps unclear.
Governments (many not all) do rely in the scientific ...
-5
Climate change research has a big impact on government policy with some governments, but not all. Governments are in a tricky position, on the one hand they would like to appease climate change hysteria and play it safe, on the other hand they don't want to handicap their industries, lower national prosperity and raise unemployment by fulfilling the demands ...
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