Climate change and sea level

[Lou_Duran]

Jamie B,

A brief review of the history of man would find innumerable required changes of lifestyle.  Did heavy concentrations of CO2 cause the Dutch and Venice adaptations?  What happened during the Medieval Warming and what misdeed of man caused it?  I would think that the concern would be much greater if the 1970's dire prediction with almost equal fervor and strength of conviction of a new ice age came back into vogue.  Or maybe a potential reframing of the nature of the catastrophe given that the data doesn't appear to be so linear is the reason why "global warming" is now out-of-date and "climate change" is the new accepted operative phrase.   Regardless of wheter the climate is warming or cooling- and it is always doing something- anthropogenic forcing (high browed way of saying that evil men caused it) requires governments (good men) to do something draconian about it.  Yeah!

And, by the way, which prediction of sea level increases are you speaking of?  Gore's 20' in the "near future" or the UN's revised estimate of 38 cm (a little over a foot) in this century?  Substantially different walls, don't you think?  Come to think of it, why shouldn't the good residents of Irvine, CA and the foothills of Anaheim not have the same fortuitious experience of say Newport Beach or even Catalina Island?  I would have been so much happier in CA living with the beautiful people in Newport Beach than five miles inland with the 55 as my backyard in Costa Mesa.  But I digress.  
  
Sean A,

That the so-called "alternative sources of clean energy" are more expensive, exponentially in some cases, is indeed "settled".  That is why Gore and Obama require unthinkable carbon taxes to subsidize these inefficient sources (some estimates exceed $50 trillion).  It is not a matter of faith in my part.  Even a Buckeye like me with a rudimentary knowledge of physics knows that if it takes more energy to produce an alternative source than the energy it can then produce, that it is likely not cost effective.  And history is replete with examples of the U.S. government greatly underestimating the costs of its programs and grossly exaggerating the expected benefits.  Some day we will find a better source of energy than fossil fuels.  We are not there yet, though David Schmidt has opined that a hydrogen revolution is right around the corner.  I pray for this modern form of manna as I do for a classic golf swing that allows me to shoot par.  My expectations aren't very high, though I hear hope is back in.   

[Sean_A]

Jamie B,

A brief review of the history of man would find innumerable required changes of lifestyle.  Did heavy concentrations of CO2 cause the Dutch and Venice adaptations?  What happened during the Medieval Warming and what misdeed of man caused it?  I would think that the concern would be much greater if the 1970's dire prediction with almost equal fervor and strength of conviction of a new ice age came back into vogue.  Or maybe a potential reframing of the nature of the catastrophe given that the data doesn't appear to be so linear is the reason why "global warming" is now out-of-date and "climate change" is the new accepted operative phrase.   Regardless of wheter the climate is warming or cooling- and it is always doing something- anthropogenic forcing (high browed way of saying that evil men caused it) requires governments (good men) to do something draconian about it.  Yeah!

And, by the way, which prediction of sea level increases are you speaking of?  Gore's 20' in the "near future" or the UN's revised estimate of 38 cm (a little over a foot) in this century?  Substantially different walls, don't you think?  Come to think of it, why shouldn't the good residents of Irvine, CA and the foothills of Anaheim not have the same fortuitious experience of say Newport Beach or even Catalina Island?  I would have been so much happier in CA living with the beautiful people in Newport Beach than five miles inland with the 55 as my backyard in Costa Mesa.  But I digress.  
  
Sean A,

That the so-called "alternative sources of clean energy" are more expensive, exponentially in some cases, is indeed "settled".  That is why Gore and Obama require unthinkable carbon taxes to subsidize these inefficient sources (some estimates exceed $50 trillion).  It is not a matter of faith in my part.  Even a Buckeye like me with a rudimentary knowledge of physics knows that if it takes more energy to produce an alternative source than the energy it can then produce, that it is likely not cost effective.  And history is replete with examples of the U.S. government greatly underestimating the costs of its programs and grossly exaggerating the expected benefits.  Some day we will find a better source of energy than fossil fuels.  We are not there yet, though David Schmidt has opined that a hydrogen revolution is right around the corner.  I pray for this modern form of manna as I do for a classic golf swing that allows me to shoot par.  My expectations aren't very high, though I hear hope is back in.   

Like most people frozen in an oil economy what you fail to add into the calculation is the cost of fighting wars and other diplomatic decisions to keep a steady oil supply line.   I don't just mean the cost in dollars to build an army, but the cost to the economy to build this army and the cost in lives for this army to execute a diplomatic plan.  In this day and age when the only folks making sacrifices to engage in war are those actually fighting it and their families then I don't believe we have the luxury to make judgements such as yours about the cost of alternative energy.  Its absolutely shameful that people would willfully waste energy when soldiers were dying to keep it readily available.  So much is currently within our power without spending a penny and yet we refuse to be more efficient.  Change is coming.  We can either lead or follow. This basic decision will go a long way to determine how painful this very long transition period will be.   

Ciao

[Sean Remington (SBR)]

   The cost of wars for oil would drop dramatically if we could fully develope our own supply right here in north America.  But the same people who make laws that protect us from developing our own energy now will mandate that we use a CFC MERCURY FILLED light bulb.  Now this makes sense?

[George Pazin]

Thanks for the hilarious read, unintentional though it may be.

 

[Jack_Marr]

Hmmm, so based on this evidence, the ice caps are not melting. It all makes sense.

Here's something to consider. A meteorologist by the name of Anthony Watts has been surveying the climate network stations in the US that are part of the US Historical Climate network or USHCN, particularly for their siting issues that might give these stations a heat bias. His website is at www.surfacestations.org

He and his contributors have surveyed nearly 75% of these stations to date, and the quality rating of the stations is generally extremely poor, with a very low percentage of well sited stations. Poorly sited stations are those with the temperature sensors adjacent to asphalt car parks, south facing walls, air conditioner outlets even barbeques, all heat sources or sinks. A number are sited at sewage treatment plants, also a considerable heat source. The data from these stations is what is being taken into the temperature records to present the case for global warming, although that has miraculously transmogrified into "climate change" now. Seems global warming as a term is old hat.

Anyway, here are few sample stations to give you an idea of what passes for a climate recording station in the USA. Food for thought........

[Neil_Crafter]

Jack
That's rather a smartarse response and you know it.
As it happens, the ice caps are not melting away. The Arctic is slightly below the long term average while the Antarctic is slightly above. Did you know this?

Out of the 75% of the stations in the USA surveyed, only 11% fit the USHCN's own criteria for a category 1 (well sited) surfacestation, with the majority being category 4 and 5 stations, like the ones I showed in those photos. These stations are the ones that are used to compile the historical temperature trend across the USA - does this not concern you even a little bit?

Another important issue that received a brief mention in this thread was that of Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) which issues one of the four main world temperature metrics, applies an algorithm to the data as an adjustment for UHI, but this is a measly 0.5 degrees F. Actual measurements of the UHI effect across a city, taken by temperature transects, show that the actual temperature difference between the centre of a city and surrounding rural land, is closer to 5 - 6 deg F. Anthony Watts recently did such transects across Reno, and came up with these numbers, while others have recorded a similar range of numbers across different cities. As cities have grown, the temperatures have grown as well compared to adjacent areas that have remained rural. And incidentally GISS has steadily dropped the number of reporting stations for their metric - yes dropped, not increased - and surprise surprise, most of the dropped sites have been those in rural areas, and not ones in cities and at airports.

I posed a question to Richard Choi, very early in this thread, which he has not answered - in fact no-one has who is a supporter of the Anthropogenic Global Warming argument - and that was to please tell me the current concentration of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, without recourse to Google. Do you know it Jack?

[Lou_Duran]

Damn it George Pazin, there you go again!  No riddles please.  What is so damned funny so that I can giggle with you or offer a retort if the laugh is on me?

Sean A,

Certainly you jest.  You mean war is the product of the fossil fuel age?  My atheist and agnostic friends usually opined that it was always about religion.  It must be one of those things that "it all depends on".....

BTW, when Chavez and the Middle East dictators go bankrupt because we are no longer buying their oil and their people are starving to death or trying to get to our respective shores, do we include the related costs to the price of the new fuels?  If we are going to either hold them off at their borders and feed them, or allow them to populate our countries, what is the new calculus in terms of military requirements, social dislocations, and humanitarian aid?

I have read that Europe is paddling furiously upstream to fund the rapidly growing social entitlements of an aging population while its young natives refuse to provide sufficient future benefactors.  Maybe large Arab immigration to fund European welfare is part of the equation.

I wish my European friends well, and I think that this requires a Middle East that is stable politically and relatively prosperous.  The oil states are already having a difficult time at current oil prices.  Shutting down the oil fields can only spell disaster, and you guys over the pond will be at considerable risk.  You may also wish to consider that Obama will decimate the military in the ROM as the Clinton administration's.  And there is definitely a growing nationalistic, inward orientation presently in the U.S.  Is Europe prepared to defend itself or will accomodation/assimilation (to put it politely) be its only viable option?

   

[Kalen Braley]

Neil,

I'm still waiting to hear any reasonable theory on how our planet ever managed to go into numerous ice ages and warm spells without man intervening.  I suppose it could have been dinasour flatuence, they were some big buggers you know.


On a sidenote, Greenland was once complelty ice free several centuries ago, hence its name.  So if I hear one more lame GW arguement pointing to ice sheet loss in Greenland, I think i'm going to strangle someone.

[Neil_Crafter]

Kalen
Not to mention that the evidence of some of the glaciers that have been retreating in recent years, shows trees and vegetation buried under the ice - evidence of warmer conditions in earlier times that has been studiously ignored. Even the body of the Iceman, buried in a glacier in the Alps, which showed that some of the mountain passes were open then but are closed today.

The planet's natural state over the past million or so years is to be in an ice age, it just so happens that we are in an interglacial warm period at the moment, which so happens to be the time when civilisation has burst forth. Warm is good, cold is bad regarding man's development. Why is warm seen to be so evil, and totally without any benefits to mankind, when historical evidence shows the opposite to be the case? Adaptation is the key, not a futile and deluded attempt to believe that man is the cause of any climate change and the even more deluded thinking that we can actually control our climate like dialling a thermostat. And what temperature would you like? People in Florida probably don't want ii any hotter while those in North Dakota would probably take it 5 or 10 degrees F warmer. Here in Australia I'm quite OK with our climate, even though it does get rather hot in mid-summer. Requests anyone?
ps if you don't like the climate where you live, please move to an area where there is a climate you like. I believe Florida was settled under that principal.

[Jamie Barber]

And, by the way, which prediction of sea level increases are you speaking of?  

Please read the very first post - an article on BBC reporting from a conference in Copenhagen saying that previous predictions had under-estimated. Here's the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7940532.stm

[Neil_Crafter]

Jamie
Here is an up to date graph of global sea level from the University of Colorado, based on the TOPEX and Jason satellites. As you can see, there has been little, if any, rise since 2006. The 'experts' are basing their predictions on the melting of icecaps, which does not seem to be happening. The trend is decelerating rather than accelerating. Never let the facts get in the way of a doom and gloom prediction.

[henrye]

On a sidenote, Greenland was once complelty ice free several centuries ago, hence its name.  So if I hear one more lame GW arguement pointing to ice sheet loss in Greenland, I think i'm going to strangle someone.

Kalen,  It's my understanding that there is strong evidence of some small farming and livestock communities subsisting on the south end of Greenland up until about 1500 to 1600.  Please don't confuse this with Greenland being completely ice free several centuries ago.  The ice sheet on Greenland is a mile thick in some places and it would be absurd to suggest this formed over only a few hundred years.

[Kalen Braley]

On a sidenote, Greenland was once complelty ice free several centuries ago, hence its name.  So if I hear one more lame GW arguement pointing to ice sheet loss in Greenland, I think i'm going to strangle someone.

Kalen,  It's my understanding that there is strong evidence of some small farming and livestock communities subsisting on the south end of Greenland up until about 1500 to 1600.  Please don't confuse this with Greenland being completely ice free several centuries ago.  The ice sheet on Greenland is a mile thick in some places and it would be absurd to suggest this formed over only a few hundred years.

Henry,

While true that the lower 1/3 melted off and supported big Viking Settlements until the 1300s which were eventually ended by the "little ice age", I'm talking way before then.

Ice core sample reveal that the entire island was once a massive forest.

Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed. DNA of trees, plants and insects including butterflies and spiders from beneath the southern Greenland glacier was estimated to date to 450,000 to 900,000 years ago, according to the remnants retrieved from this long-vanished boreal forest.

Yes you read that right, Greenland used to be covered in forests and the science is there to support it.  Odd that this piece of the info never seems to make it to the forefront during man-made Global Warming discussions.

P.S. Its true I should have said several thousand mllenia ago as opposed to centuries.

[Craig Van Egmond]

Thanks for the hilarious read, unintentional though it may be.

 

Another George random drive by shooting with no obvious targets, just spraying bullets hither, tither and yon.

[Neil_Crafter]

Jamie
And one more thing - to get sea level rise from melting ice that ice has to be on land, not in/on the water like the Arctic, as this is ice that already displaces its own volume of water, like icebergs. So the massive, thick - and very cold - icecaps such as those on Greenland and Antarctica would need to melt to create sea level rise. I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon the way global temperatures have flatlined in the 10 years since 1999. Please see below the UAH satellite temperature data. Doesn't look too scary to me.

[Neil_Crafter]

And while I'm in graph posting mode, here is another one you might find of interest. This is a graph of the accumulated global tropical cyclone energy (includes hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons) for the past 30 years. You can see that the energy has plummeted in the last few years and is now at a 30 year low.

Many will know one of the claims made for global warming is that tropical hurricanes and cyclones will be stronger and more frequent. Looks like reality is interfering with their predictions.

[Sean_A]

Damn it George Pazin, there you go again!  No riddles please.  What is so damned funny so that I can giggle with you or offer a retort if the laugh is on me?

Sean A,

Certainly you jest.  You mean war is the product of the fossil fuel age?  My atheist and agnostic friends usually opined that it was always about religion.  It must be one of those things that "it all depends on".....

BTW, when Chavez and the Middle East dictators go bankrupt because we are no longer buying their oil and their people are starving to death or trying to get to our respective shores, do we include the related costs to the price of the new fuels?  If we are going to either hold them off at their borders and feed them, or allow them to populate our countries, what is the new calculus in terms of military requirements, social dislocations, and humanitarian aid?

I have read that Europe is paddling furiously upstream to fund the rapidly growing social entitlements of an aging population while its young natives refuse to provide sufficient future benefactors.  Maybe large Arab immigration to fund European welfare is part of the equation.

I wish my European friends well, and I think that this requires a Middle East that is stable politically and relatively prosperous.  The oil states are already having a difficult time at current oil prices.  Shutting down the oil fields can only spell disaster, and you guys over the pond will be at considerable risk.  You may also wish to consider that Obama will decimate the military in the ROM as the Clinton administration's.  And there is definitely a growing nationalistic, inward orientation presently in the U.S.  Is Europe prepared to defend itself or will accomodation/assimilation (to put it politely) be its only viable option?

   

Lou

Do you have a more plausible reason other than securing oil supplies as a reason for us going into Iraq twice?  If so, I'd like to hear it because all the crap Bush and Blair went on about was just that - crap.

People keep beating around the bushes arguing about data when that is hardly the point.  Is there a good reason not to start developing alternative fuel sources and using what we have more efficiently? 

Ciao

[James Boon]

Lets keep this simple,

Only when the last tree has died, the last river been poisoned and the last fish caught, will we realise that we can't eat money... or something like that anyway!

The climate changes naturally over centuries no matter what we do, BUT I can't see one good reason to keep pumping all the crap into the atmosphere that we have been doing since the industrial revolution, considering we are now aware of so many ways of naturally quenching our thirst for energy? Anybody who wants to argue this, just ask yourself why you don't just pile all your rubbish in a big heap at the bottom of your garden and start pissing in the corner of your kitchen, because thats what we are continuing to do on a massive scale?

You can all go back to talking about science know if you want 

No matter what, its probably a good idea to play as many links courses as you can in the near future, starting with Brancaster and some of the Dutch courses, just in case. And in small print, please use public transport or less polluting means of transport wherever possible to get there 

Cheers,

James

[Jamie Barber]

The truth is *we* - Joe Public - don't have the necessary information to say for sure whether climate change is happening or not, nor at what rate. Neil's graphs are very pretty but essentially meaningless to us; we don't know anything about the data. I don't consider myself uneducated (PhD Chem Eng) but I cannot make a judgement based on data available to me.

Clearly there are plenty of scientists who think the phenomenon is real. Maybe time will prove them wrong.

This thread was started to ask if seaside golf courses had plans for sea defences - given a sizeable body of scientific opinion that sea levels would rise over the next century (if you agree or not).

If you want to debate the whys and wherefores of climate change, I'm sure there are other forums where you can argue until you're blue in the face

[Neil_Crafter]

People keep beating around the bushes arguing about data when that is hardly the point.  Is there a good reason not to start developing alternative fuel sources and using what we have more efficiently? 

Sean
if you consider arguing about the science "beating around the bush" then fine, plenty of people do think it is to the point, myself included. Certainly there is no good reason not to develop alternative energy sources, the main problem with wind and solar is that they are intermittent and while they can provide supplementary power, they are useless as base load power sources - only coal, natural gas and nuclear plants can currently provide base power. Without these we would be living in the dark and shivering. If there is a 'magic' energy solution out there waiting to be discovered, I'm sure there are plenty of people and companies trying to find what it might be.

Jamie
Your thread is titled "Climate Change and Sea Level" if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps you should have given it another title if you did not expect climate change and sea level to be discussed on it. The impact of sea level rise on links courses has been a negligible part of the general erosion effects a number of courses have seen IMO. Sandy coastlines are always eroding and being deposited elsewhere. The act of deposition is the reason why the main part of TOC is now some six or seven hundred metres from St Andrews Bay when a few centuries ago it was right on the water. Pluses and minuses.

The graphs I posted are not meant to be pretty, they are intended to show that the dramatic global apocalypse that is predicted is grossly exaggerated that's all. If you are unable to interpret them, that's fine, I'm sure others can.

[Jamie Barber]

I think if you really try you could be even more patronising LOL

[Neil_Crafter]

I'm a bit puzzled Jamie
Do you want people to discuss the topic or not?
If not, that's fine, I'll stop posting. But perhaps you should think twice about why you start a thread then.
If you think I am patronising you, I'm sorry, that was not my intention.

[Jeff Taylor]

That is the current model used by the big 6 oil companies...

I thought most of the world's oil supply was in government hands to start with. Am I wrong on this?
Thanks.
JT

[Jamie Barber]

Relax - the intention wasn't to start a fight about if you believe it or not, just commenting on the article on BBC and I wondered if clubs were taking steps regarding sea defences.

If the answer is "no - we don't believe there is a problem" (which is what seems to be implied at Prince's where I play because they're certainly not doing anything) - then OK.

 

[Ian Andrew]

Why does anyone have to be right or wrong about global warming, other than financial gain?

If we all decide to be good stewards of the resources under our influence, isn't that reward enough?

Joe

Joe,

I liked your answer.

I spoke on "An Environmental Approach to Golf Design" at the Canadian Golf Superintendents Conference this week – which ended up being a more holistic look at golf development since you can’t only talk about just golf courses if you want to make a difference.

I struggled with all the science that surrounds the issue as I tried to clarify a few things for myself scientifically. For people on “either” side of this argument to be so cock sure of their opinion means they are choosing to read publications that "back" their formed opinion rather than reading everything and forming an opinion from the information available. It’s not that cut and dry.

I digress....

I always liked the argument that if we can do things better, why wouldn't we. And that was the argument that I presented at my lecture – and that reason has always been enough for me.