Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "What is climate change? - The Climate Question, BBC World Service" video.

  1. The Earth was warmer in the recent and distant past. It warmed faster in the past. There is no climate crisis.
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  2. Climate change is not "turbocharging weather events". The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Increased Flooding: not detected, no attribution. Increased Meteorological Drought: not detected, no attribution. Increased Hydrological Drought: not detected, no attribution. Increased Tropical Cyclones: not detected, no attribution. Increased Winter Storms: not detected, no attribution. Increased Thunderstorms: not detected, no attribution. Increased Hail: not detected, no attribution. increased lightning: not detected, no attribution. Increased Extreme Winds: not detected, no attribution. There is no climate crisis. The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that certain severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Pages 1761 - 1765, Table 11.A.2 Synthesis table summarising assessments Heavy Precipitation: 24 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (12 medium confidence), 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution. Agricultural Drought: 31 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (14 medium confidence. No high confidence assessment). 42 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (3 medium, no high confidence). Ecological Drought as above. Hydrological Drought: 38 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend. 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (2 medium confidence, no high confidence). So the IPCC are saying we didn't cause droughts and we didn't make it rain. How surprising! There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis. The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed: Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions), Aridity, Avalanche (snow), Average precipitation, Average Wind Speed, Coastal Flood, Agricultural drought, Hydrological drought, Erosion of Coastlines, Fire Weather (hot and windy), Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods), Frost, Hail, Heavy Rain, Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms, Landslides, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Acidity, Radiation at the Earth’s Surface, River/Lake Floods, Sand and Dust Storms, Sea Level, Severe Wind Storms, Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets, Tropical Cyclones. How about some quotes from the UN's IPCC AR6? "There is low confidence in the emergence of heavy precipitation and pluvial and river flood frequency in observations, despite trends that have been found in a few regions." "There is low confidence in the emergence of drought frequency in observations, for any type of drought, in all regions." "Observed mean surface wind speed trends are present in many areas, but the emergence of these trends from the interannual natural variability and their attribution to human-induced climate change remains of low confidence due to various factors such as changes in the type and exposure of recording instruments, and their relation to climate change is not established. . . The same limitation also holds for wind extremes (severe storms, tropical cyclones, sand and dust storms)." There is no objective observational evidence that we are living through a global climate crisis. None.
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  3. @MariaMartinez-researcher  The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Increased Flooding: not detected, no attribution. Increased Meteorological Drought: not detected, no attribution. Increased Hydrological Drought: not detected, no attribution. Increased Tropical Cyclones: not detected, no attribution. Increased Winter Storms: not detected, no attribution. Increased Thunderstorms: not detected, no attribution. Increased Hail: not detected, no attribution. increased lightning: not detected, no attribution. Increased Extreme Winds: not detected, no attribution. There is no climate crisis. The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that certain severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Pages 1761 - 1765, Table 11.A.2 Synthesis table summarising assessments Heavy Precipitation: 24 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (12 medium confidence), 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution. Agricultural Drought: 31 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (14 medium confidence. No high confidence assessment). 42 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (3 medium, no high confidence). Ecological Drought as above. Hydrological Drought: 38 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend. 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (2 medium confidence, no high confidence). So the IPCC are saying we didn't cause droughts and we didn't make it rain. How surprising! There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis. The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed: Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions), Aridity, Avalanche (snow), Average precipitation, Average Wind Speed, Coastal Flood, Agricultural drought, Hydrological drought, Erosion of Coastlines, Fire Weather (hot and windy), Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods), Frost, Hail, Heavy Rain, Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms, Landslides, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Acidity, Radiation at the Earth’s Surface, River/Lake Floods, Sand and Dust Storms, Sea Level, Severe Wind Storms, Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets, Tropical Cyclones. How about some quotes from the UN's IPCC AR6? "There is low confidence in the emergence of heavy precipitation and pluvial and river flood frequency in observations, despite trends that have been found in a few regions." "There is low confidence in the emergence of drought frequency in observations, for any type of drought, in all regions." "Observed mean surface wind speed trends are present in many areas, but the emergence of these trends from the interannual natural variability and their attribution to human-induced climate change remains of low confidence due to various factors such as changes in the type and exposure of recording instruments, and their relation to climate change is not established. . . The same limitation also holds for wind extremes (severe storms, tropical cyclones, sand and dust storms)." There is no objective observational evidence that we are living through a global climate crisis. None.
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  4. @MariaMartinez-researcher  2022 Pakistan Floods: area flooded 8%, much of this short term. 2010 floods were worse. Both associated with La Niña phase during a Northern Hemisphere summer - a natural phenomenon. There is no connection to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. August 1961 was wetter. For Pakistan's annual rainfall totals the 7-year moving average has barely changed since the 1980s, fluctuating up and down, but with no long term trend. Pakistan has endured major floods long before any significant rise in CO2. Since 1850 Pakistan has experienced 7 major droughts and 6 major floods. Since 1880 there is no trend in excess rainfall or drought conditions over the greater Indian region. I might add the people of Pakistan are also suffering from poverty, bad governance and uncontrolled population growth. In addition in the immediate future they will suffer from the perverse environmental policies of Developed countries that have decided to stop extracting their own energy resources, but will consume the rest of the world's, outbidding poorer countries, like Pakistan, consigning them to darkness and further poverty.
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  5. @MariaMartinez-researcher  As regards flooding, the U.N. IPCC admits having “low confidence” in even the “sign” of any changes—in other words, it is just as likely that climate change is making floods less frequent and less severe. In a study on the climate impact on flooding for the USA and Europe, published in the Journal of Hydrology, Volume 552, September 2017, Pages 704-717, the study found: ‘The number of significant trends was about the number expected due to chance alone.’ ‘Changes in the frequency of major floods are dominated by multidecadal variability.’ ‘The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded (Hartmann et al., 2013) that globally there is no clear and widespread evidence of changes in flood magnitude or frequency in observed flood records.’ ‘The results of this study, for North America and Europe, provide a firmer foundation and support the conclusion of the IPCC that compelling evidence for increased flooding at a global scale is lacking.’
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  6. @MariaMartinez-researcher  Presumably the major rivers in Europe would need drought to dry up. For studies of drought patterns in Europe: Vincente-Serrano et al. 2020 “Our study stresses that from the long-term (1851–2018) perspective there are no generally consistent trends in droughts across Western Europe.” Oikonomou et al. 2020 “One of the central outcomes of this research is that there is little change in drought characteristics for 1969–2018. It also seems, no particular tendencies for more or less frequent droughts in the two major geographical domains of Europe are present.” IPCC AR6: “in areas of Western and Central Europe and Northern Europe, there is no evidence of changes in the severity of hydrological droughts since 1950” so all the way from the western tip of France to Moscow.
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  7.  @imtheeastgermanguy5431  Oh, nonsense. You've got nothing.
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  8.  @MariaMartinez-researcher  Anything?
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  9. @MariaMartinez-researcher  I mean like anything at all.
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  10.  @CH-et4go  Hmm! What a dilemma! Shill or bot? That's a difficult one. Can't I be something else like a concerned citizen or a retired SOB?
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  11. @CH-et4go  Can you only offer false choices or is reality more complicated?
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  12. @CH-et4go  Nice. You never resort to cold hard facts and data when a meaningless platitude would suffice.
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  13. @imtheeastgermanguy5431  No they don't. The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Increased Flooding: not detected, no attribution. Increased Meteorological Drought: not detected, no attribution. Increased Hydrological Drought: not detected, no attribution. Increased Tropical Cyclones: not detected, no attribution. Increased Winter Storms: not detected, no attribution. Increased Thunderstorms: not detected, no attribution. Increased Hail: not detected, no attribution. increased lightning: not detected, no attribution. Increased Extreme Winds: not detected, no attribution. There is no climate crisis. The UN's IPCC AR6 report, chapter 11 'Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate' summarises the fact that certain severe weather events cannot be detected as increasing, nor attributed to human caused climate change: Pages 1761 - 1765, Table 11.A.2 Synthesis table summarising assessments Heavy Precipitation: 24 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (12 medium confidence), 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution. Agricultural Drought: 31 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend (14 medium confidence. No high confidence assessment). 42 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (3 medium, no high confidence). Ecological Drought as above. Hydrological Drought: 38 out of 45 global regions low confidence in observed trend. 43 out 45 low confidence in human attribution (2 medium confidence, no high confidence). So the IPCC are saying we didn't cause droughts and we didn't make it rain. How surprising! There is no objective observational evidence that we are living in a global climate crisis. The UN's IPCC AR6, chapter 12 "Climate Change Information for Regional Impact and for Risk Assessment", section 12.5.2, table 12.12 confirms there is a lack of evidence or no signal that the following have changed: Air Pollution Weather (temperature inversions), Aridity, Avalanche (snow), Average precipitation, Average Wind Speed, Coastal Flood, Agricultural drought, Hydrological drought, Erosion of Coastlines, Fire Weather (hot and windy), Flooding From Heavy Rain (pluvial floods), Frost, Hail, Heavy Rain, Heavy Snowfall and Ice Storms, Landslides, Marine Heatwaves, Ocean Acidity, Radiation at the Earth’s Surface, River/Lake Floods, Sand and Dust Storms, Sea Level, Severe Wind Storms, Snow, Glacier, and Ice Sheets, Tropical Cyclones. How about some quotes from the UN's IPCC AR6? "There is low confidence in the emergence of heavy precipitation and pluvial and river flood frequency in observations, despite trends that have been found in a few regions." "There is low confidence in the emergence of drought frequency in observations, for any type of drought, in all regions." "Observed mean surface wind speed trends are present in many areas, but the emergence of these trends from the interannual natural variability and their attribution to human-induced climate change remains of low confidence due to various factors such as changes in the type and exposure of recording instruments, and their relation to climate change is not established. . . The same limitation also holds for wind extremes (severe storms, tropical cyclones, sand and dust storms)." There is no objective observational evidence that we are living through a global climate crisis. None.
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  14. @rawazardalan2288  I am uncertain of your location and how a small increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere results in an increase in cancer rates in just your area. There are, however, lots of positive effects associated with climate change. There has been a 10% decline in natural disasters since 2000 (CRED). Normalised disaster losses have decreased since 1990 and human mortality due to extreme weather has decreased by more than 95% since 1920, so you're 50 times less likely to die from a climate-related disaster in a world that's 1°C warmer than 100 years ago (EM-DAT, CRED/UC). Deaths from drought have declined by 99%! Climate change saved 555,103 lives in England and Wales between 2001 and 2020 (ONS, 2022). There are over 5 million excess deaths per annum globally due to abnormal temperatures from the 2000-2019 study led Prof. Guo of Monash University. It found that over 90% of excess deaths were caused by excess COLD rather than excess heat. This applied globally including in the hottest continent, Africa. So, in a world with increasingly mild temperatures, there will be less excess death. Warming is good not bad. One of the main causes of death in the poorer parts of the world is attributable to air pollution. This is because they have to burn wood and dung over open fires for cooking and heating in their homes. These people need access to gas stoves and electricity to improve their health and life expectancy. They need fossil fuels to make them healthy and wealthy.
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  15. @MariaMartinez-researcher  It was warmer during the Medieval (Elbert, 2013, 2.9°C above present), Roman (Margaritelli, 2020), 2°C above present, also Wang et al, 2013, showing the change was at least hemispheric, and Minoan Warm Periods (Lécuyer, 2018, 4°C above present, links Mediterranean to Greenland Ice so at least hemispheric). It was certainly warmer during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, so during our current interglacial. If you want a citation, try Quaternary Research Volume 53, Issue 3, May 2000, Pages 302-311. This makes the point that it was upto 7°C warmer on the shores of the Arctic during that time, with trees growing on the shores of the ocean (which would have been ice free in the summer - so don't worry about an ice-free Arctic), far to the north of the current treeline. The big problem for you doomists is it shows peak interglacial warmth not now but around 8,000 years ago. It shows a downward trend to the present day but with an interruption for the Medieval Warm Period (that you doomists aren't allowed to believe in) followed by a decent into the The Little Ice Age (which you doomists think also didn't exist), and a very slight recovery to the present day still below MWP though. Now I know what you're going to say about the supposed rapid warming over the last century but that's not a fair comparison. That's instrumental with annual instrumental measurements compared with proxy data whose the resolution is 200 years. The latter cannot pick out sudden decadal increases (or decreases). If we smooth out the current instrumental data over the last two centuries you'd be lucky to see 0.5°C per century. Your rapid warming disappears, and a very large number of bicentennial periods over the last 16,500 years warm at a faster rate (than 0.5°C/century) in data sets like Osman et al (2021).
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  16. @MariaMartinez-researcher  When it comes to fires Global burned area has decreased by one quarter this century! The World is burning less. For the whole of Canada, there is no trend in burn acreage for the period 1980-2021. The previous highest burn acreage was in 1989. Over that same period the trend for number of fires was slightly downwards (CNFDB). Note that 2020 had the lowest recorded burn acreage and number of fires, so can that record be attributed to man-made climate change? Burn acreage was much, much, higher in the US during the 1920's, 30's and 40's. It peaked in 1930 at well over 50,000,000 acres. The trend is downwards (1926-2020 NIFC US) eventhough CO2 has increased exponentially. For 2000 onwards the average burn acreage is much less than 10,000,000 acres. The number of fires has also declined. Remember CO2 was increasing all the time. Burn area for US in 2023 was 3rd lowest on record. It was under 3 million acres well below the ten year average of 7 million and the lowest since 1998 (NIFC). Data for Siberia seems harder to come by. However, for the period 1997-2016, the trend was highly variable (by a factor of 4) but the trend for the annual burn acreage was downwards (Global Fire Data). For the Amazon (2003-2019), 2010 was the record year for fire emissions with all subsequent years lower by at least ½. When it comes to wildfires there was nothing unusual about 2023 summer's fire season in Europe (look it up on the EFFIS website). Besides all this the forest fire record in Southern Europe is related to the previous winter rains, not summer temperatures. Wetter winters encourage more plant grow, which forms more fuel for fires when it dries out. Mediterranean summers are always hot and dry enough to allow fires to spread. Furthermore, with regard to the IPCC, they have not detected or attributed the number of fires or the burn acreage to man-made climate change. Also IPCC only has medium confidence ( that's a 50-50, so toss a coin) that weather conditions that promote wildfires (fire weather) have become more probable in southern Europe, northern Eurasia, the USA, and Australia over the last century. Note that annual Global Wildfire Carbon Emissions have been declining dramatically since 2003, with 2022 being the lowest on record (Copernicus). "With higher CO2, increased tree cover leads to reduced fire ignition and burned area, and provides a positive feedback to tree cover" (Chen et al, 2019), so burning fossil fuels actually leads to less forest fire! Global burned area has decreased by nearly by 24.2% in 20 years (Chen et al, 2023). The World is burning less! There is no climate crisis...there isn't even any evidence for it.
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  17. @MariaMartinez-researcher  Finally, the oil companies didn't know what was going to happen in the 1970's. Nobody did, and frankly nobody does. They had done some scientific research and had constructed some models, which they correctly treated with caution. As everyone should do, as all the subsequent models have been shown not to work, and vary enormously in their output. The problem is you believe these climate models to be Truth Machines. They are not.
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