Old ships' logs show temporary global warming in 1730s

A climate prof noted for data mining of archived ships' logs has produced further insights into global warming. Dr Dennis Wheeler of Sunderland Uni says his latest analysis shows sudden warming of the North Atlantic and Europe - much like that seen in recent times - during the 1730s. This, Wheeler believes, shows that …

[M7S]

I'm unsure as to the exact implications of this...

Does this mean that piracy (as I'm sure the Spanish authorities viewed this at the time) was the cause of global warming or that due to piracy global warming was averted and temperatures lowered a few years later?

Should I attempt therefore to do my bit to save the world now by downloading stuff from the internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm

So which do we believe the complex science of annalysing Ice samples going back thousands of years...

Or sailors stating they've had a hot summer....

[dervheid]

It's just 'denialist' propaganda.

Of course!

Note to the Eco-Nazis;

Sarcasm in use here!

[Dirk Vandenheuvel]

Right

>but what our data shows is that climate science is complex and that it is wrong to take particular events and link them to CO2 emissions

Sadly if it *is* linked to human CO2 emissions and we just ignore it we are f*cked. That is the nature of the beast, you can't take the risk.

Paris.. because she doesn't take risks.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the rest

During the Viking expansion there is evidence of significant global warming a period sometimes called "the little climactic optimum". But then the crowd who want to link global warming to CO2 emissions like to ignore that one.

[Anonymous Coward]

If we ignore it...

"Sadly if it *is* linked to human CO2 emissions and we just ignore it we are f*cked. That is the nature of the beast, you can't take the risk"

Is that a promise? Not been f*cked for hours so I might just go out and light a bonfire to help!

(Do I really need need explain the Paris link after that comment?)

[Stuart Elliott]

RE:the little climactic optimum

I think you mean CLIMATIC, or was Paris around way back then too ?

[Thomas]

Not Global

Europe or even Northern Atlantic is just a small part of the globe. This data is interesting, but be careful about calling it global warming, it might just as well be a change in currents or winds that made one part of the globe warmer and some other part colder. I suppose we'll have to wait for the scientific article to be publish to learn the real details about what was found. (Never trust public media to get a scientific story straight)

[Mark]

@Anonymous Coward

Uh, how did you find out about the Climactic Optimum if there's a huge conspiracy about global warming???

Aye, I understand: you're a fuckwit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I blame the unicorns

Tell me oh great Google, did the unicorns cause global warming in 1730?

The search [did unicorns cause global warming in 1730] Returns 1540 results, so apparently there's a link there....

Either that or I can shown any correlation given a large enough and diverse enough set of data to be mined. On the other hand, where did the Unicorns go??? Did you kill them Lewis??

[lewis page murdered unicorns] returns 39100 results.....

[Mark]

@M7S

Pirates are the Chosen Prophets of the FSM (Pasta Be Upon Him) and Global Warming is His Noodlyness' Holy Retribution for our murder of His Chosen.

So, yes. Pirate away. And you will come Closer To Him and the World Shall Be Saved!

@dervheid "eco-nazi" is not sarcasm, it's indicative of you being a shit-eating mough breather polluting the planet and busy pissing in the shallow end of the gene pool

(note for the fuckwits: the above was sarcasm. honest).

[John Macintyre]

no no no, it's clearly humans...

you can tax the air to high heaven, so it must be humans

the cynic one please

[/\/\j17]

@Mr ChriZ

"So which do we believe the complex science of annalysing Ice samples going back thousands of years...

Or sailors stating they've had a hot summer...."

Probably the sailors.

The captain was required to keep a detailed record of each voyage and, to be honest having something to do probably stopped them going a little too mad. Importantly they weren't actually looking for anything in the numbers, just writing them down. The climate scientists looking for evidence of man-made global warming are more likely to find it, possibly ignoring the samples that don't fit the pattern they are looking for - it's human nature, consious or otherwise.

[Flocke Kroes]

Easy way to find historical temperatures in a ship's log:

If the handwriting was a bit shaky, it was cold. If the page has sweaty finger marks it was hot.

[Aron]

More and more evidence against human induced global warming...

... I feel the end coming. Within one year all this anti-human Green propaganda will be over and done with.

What's the next scare?

[TeeCee]

@M7S

Actually there's a known inverse correlation between piracy and Global Warming as all true Pastafarians have been aware of for some time. See here for a graph illustrating this point about halfway down the page:

http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

I've not seen any evidence that downloading free stuff from the Internet qualifies sufficiently as piracy in traditional terms to counteract Global Warming, but you could try wearing a wooden leg and eypatch and shouting such things as "Avast ye lubbers!" while downloading and see if that helps. If you can run to sailing around in a galleon flying the Jolly Roger and letting off the odd broadside as well, you might be on to something.

[Charlie]

How about a look at the temp data

of all the submaring fleets over the last 60 years. A much more detailed model would be available.

[Geoff Webber]

Little ice age

I wonder if Mr Wheeler has managed to read as far as the 1770's.

The hot period referred to here was followed by one of the 3 little ice ages.

Now don't get me wrong. I firmly believe that climate change is happening and that we have little control of the outcomes.

It would seem pretty obvious that if certain substances and chemicals are likely to exacerbate the problem then we should do all we can to reduce the use / output of those.

A bigger worry is a (long overdue) return to much colder conditions.

The UK and northern Europe are protected by the warming effect of the Atlantic conveyor.

Negate its effects and we could be in for a much worse time than if the temperature goes up by a few more degrees.

Penguins - because they could be eating from my bird table shortly!

And yes I know that penguins are found at the southern pole not the northern one.

The ones i refer to will have escaped from zoo's

[John]

FSM

As any Flying Spaghetti Monster-ist will tell you, piracy is a good thing. It's the decline in the number of pirates that produces global warming. You can prove it with a graph, so it must be true (just like Al Gore's graphs).

The reason for the warming in the 1730's is that they captured only _one_ treasure ship. Had they looted more, warming would have been averted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-climax...

Nobody who's serious about AGW denies that previous warm periods have occurred, nor that they coincide with various periodic cycles. The problem with the current uptick in temperatures is twofold:

1) its onset is markedly faster than information we've collected from various sources (ice core samples, paleobotanical research, ocean bed stratigraphy, dendrochronology) indicates that previous cycles have been

2) it doesn't actually map to any of the cycles (sunspots, orbital wobbles etc) that the denialists point to as causing warming.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Geoff Webber

The UK and northern Europe are protected by the warming effect of the Atlantic conveyor.

Not much protection, she was sunk during the Falkland's War.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same shit different day.

Yet more evidence that this Global Climate change is a natural event.

But yet the powers that be want us to believe its all the nasty humans fault and that the answer to save mother Gaia is to tax us more and convince us that turning off a light bulb will save us from the coming Apocalypse.

Instead of doing all that pesky stuff like, clearing the national debt and trying to make a surplus incase of a natural event requiring the relocation of huge populations and/or reuilding of towns.

Making sure we have enough food supplies to last us at least a year incase all the crops fail.

And making huge sea and flood defences to help minimize the above.

*\. Mines the one with "Im a Patio Heater" writtern on the back.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many decades it will take

for the masses to realise that the wool is being pulled over their eyes as far as climate change is concerned.

One day, we'll look back on this decade and laugh at how gullible we were to have fallen for propaganda designed to induce terror, subdue the masses, and raise taxes.

That's if the New World Order hasn't enslaved the human race by then, of course.

Black helicopter, as global warming is a global conspiracy by those in power.

[Max]

@John

"As any Flying Spaghetti Monster-ist will tell you,..."

Don't you mean "As any Pastafarian will tell you,..."?

Yes, they really should have looted more Spanish ships to keep the temp consistent. I'll do my part by copying as many DVDs as I can shake a stick at.

[alphaxion]

ice cores

I thought the prominent scientist that developed the use of ice cores claimed that they're all contaminated and shouldn't be taken as exact readings?

The climate is always changing and it's human centrist arrogance that claims we caused it - it's just we humans are causing the change to be more pronounced and closer to the "extreme" side rather than causing the change.

We have lived in an unusual period of relatively stability environment-wise.. was only a matter of time before the earth returns to normal!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cats and dogs.

Those who are "deniers" (a lovely little phrase is that) will continue to find reasons why the GW Fascists are wrong and those who think we are responsible will continue to hurl childish insults and repetitive facts at everyone who'll listen. Billions get handed out to people intent on proving we are responsible and those who question it get accused of being akin to holocaust deniers.

Meanwhile the plan for greater surveillance, ID cards, the unification of security forces, the end of the welfare state, the end of the NHS and probably some sort of new war in Iran/Pakistan are all being carried out.

But that's ok guys, you stick to bickering about whether the ice record can be trusted or not. Cus we all know that the UN is utterly reliable, would never ever fall into a trap of being manipulated into a stance not based on hard fact (caucasian heterosexual AID's epidemic anyone?) and is absolutely bang on the money when it's pet scientists scream abuse at anyone who tries to say "do the figures really say what you claim and why are plenty more scientists against global warming (around 17,000) as compared to the 2500 the UN can summon to say it's true?"

You're verging on being Golgafrinchans.

[herman]

Global Cooling

How many here are old enough to remember the 1970s era Global Cooling scare?

[Ricardo Ribeiro]

global warming bs

one more evidence against the political agenda of the eco-nazis!

I'm so tired of this crazy mumbo-jumbo that eco-nazis spill out on us, including the Heathrow expansion, come-on... heathrow needs a new runway and those idiots talk about global warming.

PAris, because even with her challenged intelligence can grasp the concepts.

[Anonymous Coward]

How many here are old enough to remember

paddling in Sheffield city centre last year?

[Anonymous Coward]

We will laugh at ourselves when AGW is proven

Sadly, no. Instead, we will be hunting down the scientists and hanging them from the nearest tree (if any are to be found) in revenge for our misery.

The final stage: hunt down the innocent, persecute the messengers, promote the uninvolved.

Dammed canary you sold me has died. It is deceased, dead, passed away, and I want my money returned.

[IR]

Er, science?

North Atlantic and Europe <> Globe

So it doesn't actually show "global" warming at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ herman

I'm old enough to remember the 1970s global cooling scare, but hat's all it was - a scare.

Some climatologists of the time had a theory that interglacials such as the one we've been living in for the last 10K years had a mean lifetime of - well about 10K years. When they looked at climactic data, there was also a marked downturn in global temperatures during the middle 20th Century. So it was a reasonable theory to propose we were looking at the end of an interglacial with global temperatures likely to go into long term decline.

HOWEVER, that was only ever a minority point of view - albeit a well publicised one. The majority of global climate scientists had concluded that temperatures would either remain stable or, even begin to warm. They were looking at the various Milankovich Cycles that appear to have been driving the Pleistocene and Holocene climate changes.

We now know that the decline in the mid 20th Century is more linked to the huge aerosol emissions associated with the rapid industrialisation of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in North America, the USSR and China, much of which was driven by high sulphur coal. As these economies gradually switched to cleaner coal and increasingly to oil and gas; and began to limit industrial emissions, the skies cleared and temperatures began to rise.

And if anyone is still reading - (hello) - the Medieval Warm Period is responsible for Greenland being MARGINALLY warmer than it is today - it was never green - that was Viking spin. Unlike the current warming, its effects were not global; the North Atlantic saw large amounts of warming, but the Pacific was cooler. It also came on much slower than the current warming, so its cause was probably not related to what we're seeing today.

[Hig Hurtenflurst]

@Geoff Webber

Tall penguins or low bird table?

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate change is like shit..it happens

la la la la I'm so happy so very happy - records show that climate change has happen before and during our short stay on this little mudball; it will continue to happen - hold on tight!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

time travel

@Charlie: How would data from "submaring fleets over the last 60 years" provide any insight into temperature trends in the 1730's?

[Nexox Enigma]

Re: time travel

"""@Charlie: How would data from "submaring fleets over the last 60 years" provide any insight into temperature trends in the 1730's?"""

I agree. There has been plenty of temperature data gathered over the last 60 years from a variety of sources. Letting out information about where various subs were at what time could obviously be a bad thing.

Plus 60 years is nothing on the scale of global climate. The value here is that these records go back for quite a while, which means you can look at longer trends and things.

I doubt that these scientists are pouring over data to find a few global warming / cooling events - they probably just wandered across them while compiling a set of temperatures which can later be used to compare with climate models.

Gods I wish the political side of this climate thing would go away. And the sad thing is that AGW is just about the last thing we should be worried about from CO2 / other pollutants.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hansen can fix the data

High temperatures can be corrected, just give the data to James Hansen, the NASA expert at revising older temperatures downwards to better fit his superior reconstruction of the actual temperatures! Yeah right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Horizon

I remember a BBC horizon (or it could have been the CH4 Equinox) programme which examined the changing cycles of hot and extreme cold over hundreds of millions of years. A great deal was made of a graph showing CO2 levels versus temperature. There have been several ( I forget the number) "spikes" where CO2 rapidly rose, but in every case, the rise in temperature was followed by the rise in CO2.

The most important thing that the graph showed however, was that the spike was over very quickly, and both CO2 and temperature dropped like a stone with 50 years, ie temps went down by 15 to 20 C.

I can't find a reference anywhere to this programme now, and I really would like to. I'm not dreaming it, and the longer I look without finding it, the more suspicious I get. So, if you know where it can be found, please post a link or a reference.

Part of the scenario they described involved methane ice escaping due to highter ocean temps, which pushed the warming effect over the top. This programme was shown at least 6 or 7 years ago, before GW became the poster child it is today. There have been later programmes that are very similiar (methane ice, ice cores etc) but none of them shows more than about 400K years back in time on the graph. The graph I remember showed things over a much greater time scale. All we get these days is the hockey stick doom graph. The other graph was more accurate.

[Steven Raith]

RE time travel

@AC - it's all that wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff ; very complicated.

[Alexis Vallance]

Global war.. - opps 'Climate Change'

We're spending so much time and effort doing research into all this when we could all be happy and doing nothing!

CO2 baby!!

[Great D'Ane]

Coincidence

That 'Global Warming' is now 'Climate Change'

Whatever happens it will be YOUR FAULT.

[Keith T]

"consistent language"?

"it wasn't normal for warships to carry thermometers at the time, so much of the analysis draws on winds and the "consistent language"?

What is that supposed to mean?

[chris]

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

For benefit of Lewis, here's the Royal Navy's temperature estimating methodology in full.

(Shiver / Timbers) * SQRT (y0-h0)+BTL(rum) = PROFIT

Conclusive proof that it is our God / Adam Smith given right to burn poor peoples' food sitting in rows of metal boxes for four hours a day so as we can exchange paper for plastic and bright lights to make us feel less miserable.

The greens do indeed hate your freedoms you rugged individualist, 4x4-driving, gadget-stimulating, fearless iconoclasts you. It is all a conspiracy, of course. Those pesky scientists and their published papers and discussions.

I'm trying to coin an appropriate "tard"ism but can't decide on Libtards, Nettards, Marketards, Smithtards, Randtards, Exxotards or just plain wilfully ignorant selfish cunts. (Which I guess takes us back to Libtards)

[Keith T]

Anyone locate the journal article by Wheeler?

I've googled and I can't find the original article or the "The Holocene" journal. I'd really like to take a look at it.

All I've found are a bunch of blogs saying the article indicates our current global warming isn't man made, in spite of Wheeler saying something to the effect of "current global warming is a reality".

[Karmakaze]

The Register is LYING to you.

All of you, including the people that recognise that this is not evidence against AGW, have failed to see that The Register is LYING to you. The headline says "global warming" but if you check the Times article, what do you find?

“This shows that during the 1730s, Europe underwent a period of rapid warming similar to that recorded recently”

The data does not show GLOBAL warming, it shows EUROPEAN warming. Why did The Register feel the need to LIE in their headline?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Karmakaze

So if it only affects Europe and the Northern Atlantic then it isn't Global Warming?

What about the current warming that is only affecting the Northern Hemisphere (the Southern Hemisphere is getting colder / no change)? Is this Global Warming?

Does this mean that everyone talking about GLOBAL warming is LYING to me too?

[Anonymous Coward]

@karmakaze

The reg has been pushing the denialist barrow for some time now.

It seems tech people, despite their "ïntelligence" swallow the denailist agenda whole, you know the one promoted and pushed by-surprise surprise- the oil industry formany years.

They even claim scientists lie about the results of test-simply pathetic.

[Stewart Haywood]

RE:the little climactic optimum

It was probably the Viking habit of setting fire to boats at funerals that caused it.

In the 1730s it was most likely all the hot cannon balls being fired into the Atlantic that caused it.

[Charles Manning]

Sailors vs thermometers

For a bunch of independent sailors to notice differences would surely take larger changes than the fraction of a degree measured by modern science.

I could understand them all getting a global warming group think if they all had satellite TV watching Al Gore, but they did not. This made for many independent observations.

Of course in Antarctica seeing a lot of ice does not necessarily mean cooler times, it could also mean warmer times and that bits are breaking off... or it might just be coincidental and mean nothing at all.

Changes in wind/swell patterns can also break up ice sheets and cause these to be carried away to be melted elsewhere. Changes in wind/currents can also cause upwellings of deep water which can melt faster.

The global warming computer models that predict doom and gloom have far more variables than we understand and eventually the model gets massaged to provide the politically correct result required on the day.

[david]

weather is fractal

It is irregular at every scale. It is unwise to link global warming to specific events, because if you use specific events to support the theory of global warming, you look like an idiot when other specific events don't support the theory. Specific events that do and don't support global warming will always occur, because weather is fractal.

The problem is that there are a lot of idiots out there using specific events to "prove" global warming. The association of global warming with idiots does no one any favours.

[Geoff Webber]

@Hig Hurtenflurst

<Tall penguins or low bird table?>

neither - the penguins stand on the snowdrift !

[Tim]

Further records reveal...

A search of the Treasury's archives indicate that 18th century global warming was recgnised and stopped in it's tracks by an enhanced fiscal policy . It was widely recognised that the problem could be dealt with not by researching new technologies or by encouraging people to behave in an environmental manner, but by simply taxing the population heavily on those essential items it cannot do without.

Tim#3

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading too much into unreliable data.

According to records there was a sudden increase in temperature during the second world war. But this has been explained to be because the data at either side comes from the Royal Navy and in the high temperature from from US navy (because the RN was busy). They measured the temperature in different ways. The RN throw a bucket over the side to collect a water sample and measure the temperature in the bucket on deck. Not particularly scientific.

Do you believe they would be any more reliable in 1700s?

[Vendicar Decarian]

Breeding Fuckwhits

"... I feel the end coming. Within one year all this anti-human Green propaganda will be over and done with.

What's the next scare?"

Probably that you Mindless Fuckwhits will continue to breed.

[Karmakaze]

Oh god, really?

@Anonymous Coward (Tuesday 5th August 2008 00:32 GMT)

"So if it only affects Europe and the Northern Atlantic then it isn't Global Warming?"

Ummm.... YES!

"What about the current warming that is only affecting the Northern Hemisphere (the Southern Hemisphere is getting colder / no change)? Is this Global Warming?"

You're kidding right? You truly believe that bull? Want a dose of reality?

"The marine data are those of sea-surface temperature (SST) and air temperature measured at night (NMAT) on board ship"

"Differences also exist between trends in the maximum and minimum New Zealand temperatures (NZT), particularly in winter."

"We conclude that annual NZT and NMAT over the nearby ocean surface have both warmed by about 0.7°C since the beginning of the century, with a slightly smaller increase in SST. This confirms previous work on the magnitude of the warming of New Zealand climate this century. Warming in NMAT and NZT in each season varies in a similar way, with consistently slightly smaller increases in SST."

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/114077999/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

That's where I am, and NO it isn't just us.

"Does this mean that everyone talking about GLOBAL warming is LYING to me too?"

Nope, it just means you don't know what you are talking about.

[Hal Dace]

Internet echo chamber?

And here I was thinking the Reg was against those...

But it seems Mr Page and his entourage just can't resist little snipes based on highly selective evidence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the debate?

1) Politicians love to give us all a new Bogeyman, and to raise any new tax that they can. It's a given. They're a bunch of evil thieving manipulative swine, granted.

2) The scientific community says they're over 90% sure that we're looking at a 2-5 degree rise this century, largely caused by greenhouse gases.

What's the problem? These two things above are perfectly compatible.

Polticians do indeed pressure the IPCC to word things so that the worst possible spin is put on things. They might even try to increase funding to doubters. But overall the scientific community remains massively independent and its voice is still spectacularly clear on this. They incorporate all the doubts, put a percentage certainty on their conclusions, and stake their reputations on their reasoning. So either

(1) the thousands of scientists involved in climate research are all part of the greatest conspiracy / cover-up of all time;

(2) or there's some flaw in their data (or models, or logic, or use of models) -- and despite it being precisely their job as scientists, they're uniformly too stupid to see it, but you, the Denier, are not;

(3) or the conclusions they provide do indeed represent the best reasoning humanity has (which is what we pay scientists for).

For (3) to be true, could the Deniers then just largely be people who haven't realised that the Politicians / Bogeyman / Tax angle isn't incompatible? So they latch onto any item of apparent counter-information that they see in print, no matter how unfortunate its provenance, calling it "yet more evidence". (An entirely understandable thing to do, given that the biggest driver of the human thought process is the subconscious desire not to be proved wrong. And especially easy to continue with, when it may take half a lifetime to find out.)

Deniers, you are of course absolutely right about the Politicians / BoogieMan / Tax angle. But do have another think about the Scientists being all either corrupt, or part of an enormous political cover-up, or less logical than you. Far, far more likely is that they're right too.

[Sean O'Connor]

Environmentalists to blame

"We now know that the decline in the mid 20th Century is more linked to the huge aerosol emissions associated with the rapid industrialisation of the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in North America, the USSR and China, much of which was driven by high sulphur coal. As these economies gradually switched to cleaner coal and increasingly to oil and gas; and began to limit industrial emissions, the skies cleared and temperatures began to rise."

So Global Warming is actually caused by environmentalists then? If they hadn't insisted on us switching to cleaner coal etc... we wouldn't have rising global temperatures. When can we expect an apology from them for destroying our planet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Climate Change

Sorry, but it is not really a big deal now is it?

The climate changes. It is hot, it is cold. It is hot again. Then it gets cold.

Within a few miles of where I live there have been bones of elephants, rhinos and mammoths and they know a few thousand years ago it was under about a mile of ice.

So what can we conclude? How about that the climate changes.

OK, so the next obvious question is "are humans affecting the rate and degree of climate change?". Good question. Better question would be "is the effect of humans on the climate a good thing, bad thing or immaterial thing?"

Which begs the question of good/bad to whom?

The Earth will carry on even if all vertebrates were wiped out tomorrow by increased carbon in the atmosphere.

And eventually something would evolve to take the vacant places. Plants and various small creatures would convert the excess carbon to coal and oil an devolution would continue. Sure many species would become extinct but that is something that has been happening well before humans evolved.

I think it is god that those who vociferously believe in MMCC and the doom laden prophesies of carbon have all given up their cars, do not use public transport (a bus may be better than a car but it still burns oil), do not ride bicycles (they don't grow on trees you know), do not waste electricity on things like arguing about climate change on an internet website and generally practice what they call us cunts for not doing ourselves.

[Britt Johnston]

another reason to slow down on oil consumption ...

is that when oil is used up, there will be none left.

It is easier to follow the consequences of this correlation than the one between CO2 and climate.

[Britt Johnston]

more nits

In the spirit of PTS (pedantry tolerance summer) allow me to point out that 1670 was some centuries later than the plundering era. In fact there was global Spanish gold inflation and a total collapse of the galleon market in between.

No doubt the authors would like to go back to earlier sources, but there was no navy, and no school system, so no reliable naval logs.

[Sam]

So back then..

..you got less miles to the Galleon?

The Redbeard Rum costume, ta.

[Anonymous Coward]

the title

Plants need CO2.

Plants create CO2.

Plants are food.

Humans need O2.

Humans create CO2.

Humans eat food.

Therefore, the more CO2, the more oxygen for us to breathe & an increase in crop yields so we won't starve.

Global Warming - It's good for you!

[Publius Aelius Hadrianus]

The end.

Burning fossil fuel creates CO2 which warms the atmosphere.

Climate change will lead to the collapse of human civilisation.

We are all doomed.

< End of debate >

[Karmakaze]

Why has The Register failed to pick up this story:

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system

Anne Trafton, News Office

July 31, 2008

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

...

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

Notice the date?

The next day this came out:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080731143345.htm

Yet The Register has posted other articles, including this highly misleading one that came out days later.

A "major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind" and it doesn't even rate a mention.

I wonder why? Could it be because it involves the cheap and easy generation of hydrogen gas for use in energy applications? Applications that could take you OFF the grid forever, including fueling clean and powerful motor vehicles, and generating unlimited free electricity for your home?

If The Register ever reports it, you can decide!

[Mark]

@Lee

People live, people die.

We still search for murder suspects though.

Man Made Death. Just because people die of natural causes doesn't mean we can't kill all humans...

Stupid twat.

[Mark]

Plants need CO2.

Unfortunately they need the water we want, the land we want and the oil we want (as pesticides and fertilisers) too.

Unless you're going to eat plants made of pure carbon. In which case, may I turn you to a diet of graphite (pencils).

Mmm-mmm! Tasty!

[Mark]

re: weather is fractal

Oddly enough it is only the deniers who use individual events to prove their story (namely that this summer was cool and wet so global warming is wrong).

[Mark]

re:Horizon

"There have been several ( I forget the number) "spikes" where CO2 rapidly rose, but in every case, the rise in temperature was followed by the rise in CO2."

"I can't find a reference anywhere to this programme now, and I really would like to. I'm not dreaming it, and the longer I look without finding it, the more suspicious I get."

"All we get these days is the hockey stick doom graph. The other graph was more accurate."

So you can't remember the actual graphs but you KNOW that this graph is more accurate than one you *can* get hold of? How does that work? The less you know, the more likely it is to be true??? No, it can't be that because you know fuck all about the hockey stick too.

Can you remember that there was a lag of 800 years between the rise in temps and the rise in CO2? Yet if the same processes are happening now as happened then, where's the equivalent 800-year-old temperature rise?

[Tim Dennell]

But this isn't a surprise to historians

“What dreadful Hot weather we have!—It keeps one in a continual state of Inelegance.” Jane Austin. Letter. 18th Sept 1796. England at the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666 was noted for its hot, drought stricken summers.

The problem is that we have a simplistic view of the Little Ice Age, and other climate periods in history. The coldest century of the past millennium in Western Europe was the 17th; in north-eastern America it was the 19th. In the north-western America it was 15th. In Western Greenland it was the 14th. In Japan it appears to have been the 12th. And in Eastern China it was the 20th. The equatorial pacific cooled during the Medieval Warm Period and warmed in the Little Ice Age. There were significant fluctuations during both. Climate variability is known about and many of the reasons understood, Co2 isn’t the only one, but looking back over longer term periods (millions of years – before even ice ages began 3 million years ago) the relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature is striking. These logs add to the year by year regional records we have, but historians aren’t at all surprised by them.

[Bruce Sinton]

A warm 1730s

One alleged warm year in the 600 year long period known as the Little Ice Age,

The one where the Thames River froze solid and people had Ice Markets on it.

Good timing has caused a documentary on the TV to be screened last night,after bed time so recorded it.

(Two hours long-been viewing it during tea breaks)

Apart from a few million of the population dying from the cold weather , triggering the French Revolution , Bonaparte having a disaster in Russia in 1812 etc , I expect it wasn't a bad time.

However I think I prefer a nice warm time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Karmakaze

Sorry, I forgot that New Zealand has suddenly expanded greatly and now takes up the majority of the Southern Hemisphere. Silly me, looking out of my Auckland window I now notice that I can no longer see any sea so that must be what has happened.

Just because New Zealand is a little bit warmer (according to land based measuring devices that happen to have been encroached upon by urban development) doesn't mean that the whole of the Southern Hemisphere is getting warmer - it quite simply isn't. Have a check of the Satellite measurements some time.

Oh, and for anybody who says that Climate Scientists don't commit fraud then why not have a look at these: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3393; http://landshape.org/stats/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/article.pdf.

Wow - it looks like Wahl and Amman, as well as Australia's CSIRO have been committing fraud to me.

Penguin - 'cos they'll still be around for many moons to come.

[n]

follow the stars

People really need to read up on climate scares.

The last one was during the 80's when an advisor to mrs thatcher told her that it would be possible to create a massive distraction to the falklands war by talking up "global cooling" theory, backed by plenty of government paid academics/scientists.

It's no coincidence that global warming came on the agenda at the same time as the "War on Terra".

The global oil prices are more influenced by wars in oil producing/transporting countries, rather than the supply running out!

Look at all the muppets who say you could save £x if you do y *

*at todays prices.

Pricing hasn't followed demand since forever.

If everyone halved their consumption tommorrow the energy companies would double their prices.

[Jack Lampka]

Where is the journalism?

Really? You just briefly mention that it wasn't normal for warships to carry thermometers at that time and let the rest of the story go? How biased do you have to be? I like The Register for its critical journalism, but when it comes to environmental topics, it's useless. Where is the comment about how the captains must have stuck their fingers in the water to measure the temperature? Or how a quasi temperature measurement during a decade in the 18th century doesn't compare with real temperature measurements over the past 150 years? I just need to stop reading The Register's environmental topics and I hope this amateurism doesn't contaminate the other topics.

[Mark]

landshape.org

Well, you use as "proof" that scientists commit fraud a pdf from a "paper" that has only ever appeared in the webspace.

Uh, how do you know that landshape.org isn't committing fraud? Just because they say what you like to hear doesn't make them authoritative.

Else give me a day to get a website up and I'll show you how GWB is actually an alien from a CO2 rich planet trying to "alien-form" this planet to be right for his people to invade.

Shit, there's probably one site up there now saying something along those lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your taxes at work

This can only be our friend at the Met Office:

@ Mark: "it's indicative of you being a shit-eating mough breather polluting the planet and busy pissing in the shallow end of the gene pool"

@Mark: "Stupid twat."

Gotta love that "public service ethic"...

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Jack

" I like The Register for its critical journalism, but when it comes to environmental topics, it's useless"

You probably mean to say "I don't want environmentalism written about critically". I find The Register very useful for putting the green's scare stories into perspective.

If you just want journalists to toe the party line you'd best stick with the BBC and other nonstop Global Warming propaganda broadcasters, then.

[Mark]

Re: Your taxes at work

Well since there are messages from me on El Reg from about 7:30 am to about 11:00pm this must mean I work for whatever business 14.5 hours a day.

Your taxes at work!!!

PS NOTE that this AC is probably unemployed. You pay for this retard to sit on their arse all day and post crap. Your taxes at work!!!

[Mark]

@Anonymous Coward

Welll "critical" has two meanings. One as in "critique" and one that El Reg does as in "rubbishes the argument". The latter one doesn't have to bother with accuracy or correctness.