Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C, warns top scientist

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George Monbiot has already lamented that we have given up on a 2°C increase in global temperatures. It's no surprise then that experts are now telling us to brace for 4°. How long will it be before we're told to prepare for 6°?

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The political and social elites have already determined they would prefer to risk a global catastrophe if it means the possibility of exploiting riches currently under frozen seas.

The average citizen is quite happy to continue the party unabated and leave the mess, no matter the consequences, to their children.

It is why even on progressive sites the majority of the discussions are not about what me must give up for a sustainable world, but how do we continue on without giving up anything at all.

This is nothing but Scaremongering!!

Al Gore's allegation that there is a "consensus" among scientists that CO2 has caused the current warming

Is that Right?

Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus Geology, Western Washington University is the author of 8 books, 150 journal publications with a focus on geomorphology; glacial geology; Pleistocene geochronology; environmental and engineering geology Has to say This:

“there is no consensus” -- no one has polled the world’s several hundred thousand scientists. Gore (2006) claimed that of 928 articles dealing with climate change in the past 10 years, none expressed any doubt about the cause of global warming. Lindzen (2006), however, found that of those 928 publications, only 13 favored CO2 as the cause of global warming.

13 of 928 and thats concensus? Thats 2% folks.

Thats the opinoion of an expert, not a person eductated in economics as I am. Don't believe the people that are scaring you that its all our fault, fact is no-one knows.

Links links links.

Either provide links to this so we can assess their validity for our selves or maybe give up.

I don't care about Al Gore and his self promotion. You still will not respond to Canadian figures like Watt Cloutier. Just tells me all you've got on this issue is the same line.

So what about cancer. I suppose cigarette smoking has also still not been proven to be a cause of cancer because there is never a direct correlation that can be absolutely pointed too.

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Originally posted by MYTHBUSTER:
[b]
The warming over the past 50 years is hardly even noticeable on the 15,000 year graph.[/b]

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The warming over the past 200 years is certainly noticeable on the 8000 year graph.

How about some links to Easterbrook's data and graphs? And why a 15,000 year comparison?

You might want to comment on this:

[url=http://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas457/Ruddiman2003.pdf]Article with graphs[/url]

our great professor DR Suzuki in the !970 was traveling around and talking about how we were going into the next ice age.......... there is big money to be made by spreading fear in the people...........I just wonder what is next.....

Link HA HA I was there in the 70s and heard him..... All those links disappeared long ago because the econazis dont want the people to know what they were talking about back then ... And how damm wrong they were back then..............

finding a link for something said 40 years ago ha ha know matter what is posted the econazis will have a answer for it.... the fact is he said it

David MacRae is a software consultant who works out of his home in St. Laurent, Quebec.

THE CONTRARIAN

GLOBAL WARMING
AND DAVID SUZUKI'S LIES

by David MacRae

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, one of the highlights of my TV-viewing week was David Suzuki's excellent The Nature of Things. Each week I looked forward to yet another lucid insight into the workings of technology and the natural world. As a consequence of that long-running series, Suzuki is by far the best-known scientist in Canada. In fact, he has a considerable reputation worldwide.

Half-truths man

It's sad to see how a man I once admired has recently stooped to obfuscation, half-truths and outright lies in support of the Luddite cause of stopping technological progress. He imagines that we should return to some mythical past in which Mankind lived in harmony with nature.

Of course, Man has never lived in harmony with nature. Instead he has fought it from the beginning, and rightly so. Until the capitalist revolution of the last 250 years gave us some control over Nature's depredations, the vast majority of people lived lives that were brutish, backbreaking and short. The « rich » were those who had a full belly with an occasional helping of meat.

In their mad dash back to this imaginary garden, Suzuki and the other eco-nuts have always set their sights first and foremost on the energy industry. This is because energy is the foundation of a modern of economy. Destroy that and mankind will truly return to the past. In their lemming rush, they ignore one small detail: if they ever achieved their goals, billions of people would die. In their death throes, they would unleash an ecological catastrophe that would dwarf the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Twenty-five years ago, the eco-nuts were fussing about how another ice age was coming. Remember that? Today it's the opposite problem; the ice caps are about to melt and we're all going to be drowned. Conveniently, the cause of this coming disaster is the energy industry. To support this idea Suzuki and the rest of the eco-nut fringe present us with the following « reasoning »:

1) The earth is warming up;
2) Man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are the cause;
3) This global warming will have a disastrous effect on the future of Mankind and the planet on the whole;
4) The Kyoto Protocol, forcing developed nations to cut back on carbon emissions, will save us from this disaster.

All four of these claims are false. Let's take them in turn:

* Claim: The earth is warming.
* Fact: The global temperature reached its modern peak about 1940 and declined somewhat in the following decade. It has not changed significantly in the last fifty years although there has been considerable variation from year to year, largely due to the El Niсo phenomenon.

* Claim: The cause of warming is man-made increases in atmospheric CO2.
* Fact: The cause of global temperature change is – wait for this – changes in the amount of radiation emitted by the sun. Should this surprise anyone? It is intuitively obvious and was first verified scientifically more than a hundred years ago.

* Claim: This warming will cause global disaster.
* Fact: A somewhat higher global temperature would be beneficial. Since the end of the last Ice Age, the global temperature has usually been higher than it is today. A long high plateau occurred between 8000 BC and 4000 BC. This period is called the Neolithic Climatic Optimum, not the Neolithic Climatic Disaster. Another shorter rise around 1000 AD has a similar name: the Medieval Climatic Optimum. Global temperatures were at a minimum between 1300 AD and 1650 AD. This period is called the Little Ice Age. To put it simply: Heat good. Cold bad. Can any Canadian really doubt this?

* Claim: Kyoto will save us all.
* Fact: Even if fully implemented, Kyoto will have a minimal effect on atmospheric accumulations of carbon dioxide. According to the exact same climate models which supposedly prove that the earth is heating up due to CO2 emissions are the cause, Kyoto would not change things by more than 0.1єC over the next century, an insignificant amount.

I am not going to justify these statements. If you want to look further into it, Junkscience.com has some good links. I especially recommend John Daly's Still Waiting for the Greenhouse and Arthur B. Robinson's Oregon Petition Project. Instead I want to concentrate on Suzuki part in this scam.

Since his thesis contradicts known facts in every way, he necessarily resorts to lies, blustering and misdirection in order to support his position. This is typical of any fanatic.

The Canoe Session

Let's watch his mendacity and obfuscation in action. On September 21st, canoe.ca sponsored him in an Internet Chat Session on this subject. From the transcript, I've extracted all the exchanges he made with his debunkers, people who disagree with his precepts. The rest were supporters or people who were simply looking for information.

We'll start with a simple request for information before we go on to people who actually confront his lies.

Richard Weatherill: Is it fairly conclusive that human activity is the primary cause of climate change, or can it be attributed equally as well to some cyclic phenomena, of which we are only dimly aware, if at all? Thank you.

David Suzuki: It's possible of course that there are things we don't even know about but the overwhelming consensus of climatologists is that we are a major cause of a warming that is not a natural cycle.

This claim is simply a lie. The overwhelming consensus of climatologists is that, if warming exists at all, its causes are natural. In all polls of climatologists conducted so far, those who expressed an opinion were far more likely to disagree with the Greenhouse theory than to accept it. For example, a 1997 Gallup poll indicated that 83 per cent of North American climatologists disagree with it.

Alan Caruba: Is it not true that the earth's overall temperature has not increased in at least the past fifty years? That no satellite or radiosonde balloon data has found a rise in temperature since around 1950 or so?

David Suzuki: The data that have been gathered, including recalibrated satellite info, support a 1є rise in the last century.

Notice that he did not answer the question. Everyone agrees that temperatures have risen over the last century. In fact, they have risen steadily over a three hundred year period starting about 1650. As I noted, the modern peak in 1940 and temperatures have been stable since 1950. Yes, temperatures rose in the first half of the twentieth century. The question was about the second half.

« As the years go by, there is a stronger and stronger consensus among climatologists that global warming does not exist. There is virtual unanimity that if warming is taking place, the causes are natural. »

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Originally posted by grumpydigger:
finding a link for something said 40 years ago ha ha know matter what is posted the econazis will have a answer for it.... the fact is he said it

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You have offered no evidence of such. Please retract the statement. Deniers manage to find and repeat such things over and over again. If Suzuki had said such a thing then Deniers would be repeating his remarks daily. They have found no remarks from Suzuki. Retract your lie please.

This is also the second time that you have called those who are in agreement with 99.8% of the scientists in fields related to climate change - econazis. Is that allowed on babble?

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David MacRae is a software consultant who works out of his home in St. Laurent, Quebec.

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Ah, a scientific expert I see.

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It's sad to see how a man I once admired has recently stooped to obfuscation, half-truths and outright lies in support of the Luddite cause of stopping technological progress.

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One method of dealing with climate change may be to stop technological progress. A far more likely route is actually to increase the speed of technological progress. Doing real good so far MacRae.

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.......Of course, Man has never lived in harmony with nature.......

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This is completely irrelevant, we are discussing the science of climate change - something MacRae gets completely wrong.

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Twenty-five years ago, the eco-nuts were fussing about how another ice age was coming. Remember that?

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25 years ago there was almost no scientific support for a looming ice age. Even at that time there was far more scientific support in favor of warming due to increases in ghgs. Read the scientific journals. In the 70s you will find almost no mention of a looming ice age in scientific journals - and most of those mentions are critical of the idea, while there are already far more mentions of global warming in those scientific journals.

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Today it's the opposite problem; the ice caps are about to melt and we're all going to be drowned. Conveniently, the cause of this coming disaster is the energy industry.

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Whether the cause is convenient or not is irrelevent, it is still the cause - well understood by the scientific community and any lay person who understands basic science and has taken the small amount of time required to understand the issue.

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All four of these claims are false. Let's take them in turn:

* Claim: The earth is warming.
* Fact: The global temperature reached its modern peak about 1940 and declined somewhat in the following decade.

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This is beyond false. Not even the likes of Lindzen, Spencer and Christy would make such a bogus claim.

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It has not changed significantly in the last fifty years although there has been considerable variation from year to year, largely due to the El Niсo phenomenon.

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Complete bullshit.

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* Claim: The cause of warming is man-made increases in atmospheric CO2.
* Fact: The cause of global temperature change is – wait for this – changes in the amount of radiation emitted by the sun. Should this surprise anyone? It is intuitively obvious and was first verified scientifically more than a hundred years ago.

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Complete bullshit. The relationship of solar radiation/intensity and temperature has a strong link going back a couple hundred years and up until the mid- to late 1970s. This has been well established by Dr Sami Solanki whose work has often been used incorrectly by deniers and indeed who has been listed as a denier by many including Soloman in his NP articles and his book called Deniers. Of course none of them bother to say that Solanki hasn't shown that the Sun is responsible for the warming - which is what he set out to prove - but in fact the opposite as Solanki himself makes clear stating that the temperature has increased rapidly in the last 30 years while solar radiation/intensity has not increased.

I don't think that there is any point going farther.

Please do not spread these lies on babble.

[ 13 August 2008: Message edited by: Trevormkidd ]

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Of course, Man has never lived in harmony with nature.......

This is completely irrelevant

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I don't know if it is irrelevant, but it is an astoundingly stupid thing to say as we are products of nature. For all we know we are fulfilling our natural function by bringing about ecological changes that will be catastrophic for us but will be barely a blip in the life of the planet.

This is why you should be [strikeout]concerned about[/strikeout] terrified of an ice-free Arctic:

[url=http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-me... methane time bomb[/url]

The Independent - Arctic scientists discover new global warming threat as melting permafrost releases millions of tons of a gas 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide

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Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age. ...

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Originally posted by Policywonk:
[b]due to the relatively short lifetime of methane in the atmosphere[/b]

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Don't forget that in the atmosphere methane oxidises to form CO2 and H2O, so even it's decay products are greenhouse gases, making it the global warming "gift" that keeps on giving.

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Originally posted by Policywonk:
[b]Actually, oxidizing (or burning) methane is a good thing relative to releasing it into the atmosphere because the global warming potential of carbon dioxide is much less than methane and the atmospheric lifetime of water vapour is much less than that of methane.[/b]

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Ah, but the residence time of CO2 (more than a hundred years, and growing) is an order of magnitude greater than for CH4 (ten+ years). The residence time of H2O is mere days, but as the atmosphere warms, it will hold more water vapour.

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Originally posted by Policywonk:
[b]The GWP of methane is rather more than an order of magnitude greater than carbon dioxide averaged over the residence time of methane.[/b]

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Quite true, but my point is you get [i]both[/i] from methane emissions, since when the methane oxidises (not the same as combustion) it turns into CO2.

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[b]A warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapour regardless of whether it comes from combustion or evaporation[/b]

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Also true.

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Originally posted by Policywonk:
[b]Not at the same time though.[/b]

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That's exactly my point. As methane breaks down in the atmosphere its greenhouse potential drops but does not disappear since its products, particularly CO2, are also greenhouse gases.

Which brings us back to the beginning. I don't see why we've gone round and round on this.

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In any case, water vapour from evaporation dwarfs that from any other source.

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Quite true, and since atmospheric water vapour is limited by atmospheric temperature and pressure, it is a feedback rather than a forcing. It is increasing only because of the warming forcing produced by increasing CO2. The current increase in methane is also a feedback in the current instance.

But there is one place that added water vapour from combustion is a factor: in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from air traffic. In this case, however, it instantly condenses into cloud trails, which reflect incoming sunlight, and thus have a cooling effect.

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Originally posted by Transplant:
[b]
But there is one place that added water vapour from combustion is a factor: in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from air traffic. In this case, however, it instantly condenses into cloud trails, which reflect incoming sunlight, and thus have a cooling effect.[/b]

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I think that the cooling effect may be overestimated. A crystal stays there for how long?
And a crystal does not reflect like a mirror. It absorbs too, Light bounces all over the place, in fact.
And there is the whole chemical effect of the ice water and vapour up there. Water is one of the favoured solvents in science. One of the best places to speed up chemical reactions.
i think people do a simple measurement of direct energy transmitted to earth and assume the rest is reflected.
It isn't. Lots still gets here by indirect means.
The air could be a tenth of a degree warmer over a 2 thousand sq mile area or the wind could be a quarter of a mile per hour faster and we would not be able to detect the difference.
It is all energy and it still gets to us.

George Monbiot in The Guardian wrote:

If it is now too late to prevent runaway climate change, the Bush team must carry much of the blame. His wilful trashing of the Middle Climate – the interlude of benign temperatures which allowed human civilisation to flourish – makes the mass murder he engineered in Iraq only the second of his crimes against humanity. Bush has waged his war on science with the same obtuse determination with which he has waged his war on terror.

[b]Is it too late? To say so is to make it true. To suggest that there is nothing that can now be done is to ensure that nothing is done. But even a resolute optimist like me finds hope ever harder to summon. A new summary of the science published since last year’s Intergovernmental Panel report suggests that - almost a century ahead of schedule - the critical climate processes might have begun.[/b]

Just a year ago the Intergovernmental Panel warned that the Arctic’s “late-summer sea ice is projected to disappear almost completely towards the end of the 21st century … in some models.” But, as the new report by the Public Interest Research Centre (PIRC) shows, climate scientists are now predicting the end of late-summer sea ice within three to seven years. The trajectory of current melting plummets through the graphs like a meteorite falling to earth.

[b]Forget the sodding polar bears: this is about all of us.[/b] As the ice disappears, the region becomes darker, which means that it absorbs more heat. A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the extra warming caused by disappearing sea ice penetrates 1500km inland, covering almost the entire region of continuous permafrost. Arctic permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the entire global atmosphere. It remains safe for as long as the ground stays frozen. But the melting has begun. [b]Methane gushers are now gassing out of some places with such force that they keep the water open in Arctic lakes, through the winter.

The effects of melting permafrost are not incorporated into any global climate models.[/b] Runaway warming in the Arctic alone could flip the entire planet into a new climatic state. The Middle Climate could collapse faster and sooner than the grimmest forecasts proposed.

[url=http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/11/25/one-shot-left/]Source[/url]

(footnotes omitted)

Interesting..., but even more worrying:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&refer=home&sid=a61C3MoVAAMA

Quote:

Arctic’s Long-Lost Forests Show Carbon Links, Scientists Say

Bloomberg - A warm period 3 million years ago, when forests dotted the Arctic region and sea levels were 80 feet (24 meters) higher, is providing clues about how heat-trapping greenhouse gases can boost global temperatures, scientists said.

Fossils from the mid-Pliocene epoch reveal a far warmer planet with a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of only about 5 percent more than exists today, said Harry Dowsett, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist. A reconstruction of the climate 3 million to 3.3 million years ago shows slight increases in CO2 may produce large temperature changes, he said.

The new data from fossilized plants and plankton are a window into how CO2 and other gases produce a greenhouse effect that’s blamed for the current global warming. The world then was as warm as that predicted for the end of the century by some climate scientists...

Data from the mid-Pliocene period suggest average temperatures were about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) warmer than today. A 2-degree Celsius increase is within the range that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast for the end of the 21st century.

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2, the main man-made greenhouse gas, were about 400 parts for every million parts of air in the mid-Pliocene. CO2 levels rose to 383.1 parts per million in 2007...

And the collection of papers on Pliocene climate in the Royal Society journal that the Bloomberg report is based on:

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/l67121161284/?p=20082f4a58b144e...

Quote:

Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world [b]at least a decade before it was predicted to happen.[/b]

Climate-change researchers have found that air temperatures in the region are higher than would be normally expected during the autumn because the increased melting of the summer Arctic sea ice is accumulating heat in the ocean. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further [b]raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, beyond which it may not recover.[/b]

[IMG]http://i38.tinypic.com/1r9lpy.gif[/IMG]

Quote:

Climate change researchers have detected the first signs of a slowdown in the Gulf Stream — the mighty ocean current that keeps Britain and Europe from freezing.

They have found that one of the “engines” driving the Gulf Stream — the sinking of supercooled water in the Greenland Sea — has weakened to less than a quarter of its former strength.

The weakening, apparently caused by global warming, could herald big changes in the current over the next few years or decades. Paradoxically, it could lead to Britain and northwestern and Europe undergoing a sharp drop in temperatures.

Such a change has long been predicted by scientists but the new research is among the first to show clear experimental evidence of the phenomenon.

[url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article520013.ece]Sunday Times[/url], May 8, 2005 

[IMG]http://i38.tinypic.com/1r9lpy.gif[/IMG]

Yes there are Bubbles...  I'll see if I can find the links again, but there are several ocean current research projects on-going...  The prominent one I was following was from a Japanese - Russian project that was monitering Northern Atlantic and Arctic currents.  My personal faveorite for most of this information is http://nsidc.org/   although I'm not sure what they have on ocean currents.

 Transplant (on a different forum I beleive) had posted information on Ice Buoys that were tracking the movement of ice across the arctic...  You might be interested in that as well.  Heh, likely the last few years we can track that...  Give it another 10 and there won't be ice to track.

May as well repeat it...  The Earth has a fantastic ability to handle yearly variations in temperature, simply through the process of converting ice to water or water to ice and the amount of energy that requires (1 gram of ice melting is the equivlent of 1 gram of 'air' rising some 82 degrees C(estimated, but thats close).  Once the ice cube in our northern drink finishes melting, we'll start to see the more abrupt changes.  Fortunately, I think we should have another 5 years of burying our heads in the sand before we're confronted with that.

 Just to put it out there as another snowball effect...  The warming trend appears to be weakening trade winds across the globe.  The winds as they travel across the ocean act to cool off the air considerably by evaporating water (same theory as the ice melting above).  Weaker winds results in less of this evaporation, which is less of a cooling effect...  Meaning we'll be in for warmer ocean temperatures in regions that these winds are weakening and ocean temps can easily be tied to the strength of hurricanes.

Have scientists determined how much of the global warming is due to sun activity?

_____________________________________________________

Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!

Fidel wrote:

Sven wrote:

Have scientists determined how much of the global warming is due to sun activity?

Yes they have. And they've determined that the sun trumps capitalism.

 

Very enlightening (and pertinent) answer.

Not. 

_______________________________________________

Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!

Fidel wrote:

Perhaps capitalists can finally get out of widgets and commodities, and fossil fuels, and banking and financial skullduggery, and make a grab for public services, health care, and perpetual phony war on terror? Maybe they can globalize that last item on the list without effin it up.

I've said it before, Fidel, but it's worth repeating: You are the master of non sequitur posts.

__________________________________________________

Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!

Quote:

Have scientists determined how much of the global warming is due to sun activity?

Yes... To some degree atleast, although it's extremely hard to get a baseline (like the 'sun has put out more energy today than it did 1150 years ago' denial arguement...  Show me our detailed records of the sun from 1150 years ago plz.  Hell, show me detailed sun activity records that go back 50 years).   We can get pretty accurate measurements as to how much sunlight reaches a certain area, but our history to compare it to is badly lacking (same difficulties with hurricanes).

Check realclimate.org   for articles along those lines, I recall one article that actually had it caluculated to an energy per square meter value...  The amount that CO2 is capable of trapping and the changes there are exponentially larger than the changes in sunlight reaching earth, so as a final answer, I think 'nearly insignificant' is correct.  Though it's a hard question to answer, if you follow the global dimming and atmospheric warming discussions, the better question to ask is where in the atmosphere is the sunlight is being asorbed/reflected...  There is far less sunlight reaching the planets surface.

Bubbles... I avoided this at first, but might as well try:

Quote:

I imagine the Gulfstream supplies a lot of energy into the Arctic. If it were to come to a halt would it be enough to prevent the melting of the Arctic ice in the summer.It would be interesting to see if there could be developng a slow occilation between an ice-free arctic ocean  and no Gulfstream, and an iced over arctic ocean with a gulfstream.  If that were to happen how long would it then take for it to dampen into a new equilibrium.

I'd be speculative of my answer to this... but here goes  :P    You are right with the degree of energy that this system circulates.  Water has an incredibly high specific heat capacity...  Meaning it takes a lot of energy to raise it by one degree celcius compared to anything else (depending on the air make-up, 1 degree change in waters temp could be a 5 degree change to the same mass of air...  If you go by volume, the amount of energy to heat a litre of water 1 degree would increase the temperature of a liter of 'air' by about 4000 degrees). 

So the amount of energy transferred by these water currents operates on a level well beyond anything the air currents could transfer.  Assuming a full halt in the system can occour, the arctic would be in for a pretty quick deep freeze while the tropical waters quickly warm.  No clue what this would do to air currents, but I'd imagine we'd see some extremely windy days...  Even then, it couldn't transfer the heat required to keep the system balanced.  So you've got an equatorial zone with no method of losing heat and the arctic radiating much more than it receives...  Unsure how extreme that could get, 50 degree tropics?  30 degrees?  If you go with studies on fossils, there was a time where tropical waters were 50-60 degrees celcius (same time a 'tropical arctic' would have existed)...  I'd imagine thats the high end of the extreme.  Reforming of ice would restore the balance required for the gulfstream, but no clue if it'd restart on it's own and resume what it once was. 

Funny enough, any of these events would not have much effect on the average global temperature really...  Just the tropics would hit one extreme while the arctic hit the other extreme. 

Then again, I'm not sure if we have a good explaination for El Nino and La Nina (although we know how to identify it and the effects it'll have, the cause is pretty much unknown)...  To suggest anyone has decent knowledge of what will happen when a system we don't understand starts dramatically changing is beyond me.