They began to realise that because the conveyor was driven by the salty water sinking then too much fresh water would dilute the salt, and so if the salt was diluted too much, the conveyor wouldn’t sink. Cut off the conveyor and a climate catastrophe would happen. ibid.
The process that could cut off the conveyor had begun. ibid.
This was the coldest winter in the last century: 1962/63. A freak event not easily forgotten. ibid.
September 12th 2001: the aftermath of tragedy. While America mourned, the weather all over the country was unusually fine. 800 miles west of New York in Madison Wisconsin a climate scientist called David Travis was on his way to work. For fifteen years Travis had been researching an apparently obscure topic – whether the vapour trails left by aircraft were having a significant effect on the climate. In the aftermath of 9/11 the entire US fleet was grounded. And Travis finally had a chance to find out ... What he observed was both immediate and dramatic. One degree in just three days ... Scientists called it global dimming. Horizon: Global Dimming, BBC 2005
Between the 1950s and the early 1990s the level of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface had dropped ... 10% in the USA, by almost 30% in Russia ... This was a truly global phenomenon. ibid.
Global dimming was not the only phenomenon that didn’t seem to fit with global warming. In Australia two more biologists Michael Roderick and Graham Farquhar were intrigued by another paradoxical result – the worldwide decline in something called the Pan Evaporation Rate ... In the 1990s scientists spotted something very strange – the rate of evaporation was falling. ibid.
The culprit had to be here on Earth. And as they searched for clues they would make another startling discovery. Global dimming is a killer. It may have been behind the worst climatic disasters of recent times, responsible for famine and death on a Biblical scale. And global dimming is poised to strike again. ibid.
A 10% fall in sunlight meant that particle pollution was having a far greater effect than anyone had thought. ibid.
But the problem Travis faced was to establish exactly how big an effect the contrails were having. ibid.
This is the real sting in the tail – solve the problem of global dimming and the world could get considerably hotter. ibid.
Today, there is a new kind of battle. It’s not just a clash of ideas, but whether people actually trust Science. One of the most vocal arguments currently raging is about Climate Science. Many people seem unconvinced that we are warming our planet through the emission of greenhouse gases. Professor Sir Paul Nurse, Horizon: Science under Attack, BBC 2011
Science created our modern world. So I want to understand why Science appears to be under such attack. ibid.
I always tell my students and post-doctoral workers – be the worst enemy of your own idea. Always challenge it. Always test it. ibid.
There is an overwhelming body of evidence that says we are warming our planet. But complexity allows for confusion and for alternative theories to develop. The only solution is to look at all the evidence as a whole. I think some extreme sceptics decide what to think first and then cherry-pick the data to support their case. We scientists have to acknowledge we now operate in a world where point of view, not peer review, hold sway. ibid.
Critics have objected on several grounds, from safety issues to environmental concerns. The GM debate once again raises the question of public trust in Science. There is a gap between the fears of some sections of the public, and the opinion of scientists that what they are doing is both useful and safe. ibid.
NASA is a major centre for climate research. It spends more than $2 billion a year studying the climate. ibid.
We scientists hadn’t gone out there and asked what bothered the public. We hadn’t talked to them about the issue. We’d not had dialogue with them. Scientists had forgotten that we don’t operate in a bubble. We cannot take the public for granted. We have to talk to them. We have to communicate the issues. We have to earn their trust if Science really is going to benefit society. ibid.
Trust no-one. Trust only what the experiments and the data tell you. We have to continue to use that approach if we are to solve problems like Climate Change. ibid.
Scientists have got to get out there. They have to be open about everything they do. They do have to talk to the media. Even if it does sometimes put their reputation at doubt. Because if we do that, it will be filled by others who don’t understand the science, and who may be driven by politics or ideology. This is far too important to be left to the polemicists and commentators in the media. Scientists have to be there too. ibid.
The Earth’s average temperature has already increased by 0.75 degree in the last one hundred and fifty years. And it’s set to rise even further. Horizon: What is One Degree? BBC 2011
Asteroids ... Tsunamis ... Super-volcano ... The Millennium Bug ... 9/11 ... 2004 the Indian Ocean Tsunami ... Our lives could be snuffed out in an instant ... A flu pandemic ... The Greenhouse Effect ... The Gulf Stream – Britain bathes in its heat ... It means we can swim in the sea at the same latitude Canada has polar bears. The End of the World: A Horizon Guide, BBC 2011
Something strange is happening to our weather. It seems to be getting more extreme. Horizon: Global Weirding, BBC 2012
Records have been broken all over the planet. ibid.
Some scientists are calling it Global Weirding. ibid.
How can it be record-breaking wet and dry at the same time? ibid.
The Little Ice Age ... The coldest winter ever recorded was in 1683/4 ... Why did the sun’s spots disappear for fifty-odd years? ibid.
Over the last few years Britain’s weather has become more extreme. Especially our winters. Last winter was the wettest on record. Deadly storms battered Britain for months ... Has it got anything to do with Climate Change? Horizon: What’s Wrong With Our Weather? BBC 2014
There were at least twelve major storms last winter. ibid.
In 1972 a group of eminent scientists sat down to write a letter to the President of the United States. They were frightened. The Earth’s climate seemed to be going haywire ... The letter warned the President he had to prepare not for global warming but for the complete opposite – a new Ice Age. Iain Stewart, Earth: Climate Wars: The Battle Begins, BBC 2008
Keeling’s measurements started in 1958 at 315 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And the levels kept on rising. Through to 2008 – 386 parts per million. This relentless year on year rise in carbon dioxide piece of evidence in the global warming debate. ibid.
But what of the cooling period in the 1950s and ’60s? It turned out that for a while the cooling effect from soot smoke-stacked chimneys had cancelled out the warming being caused by carbon dioxide. But the cooling was short lived because the relentless rise in carbon dioxide cancelled out the effect. ibid.
Back in the 1970s the Jason Report was pretty explosive. So the American government commissioned another one – this one with climate scientists. And it came up with pretty similar conclusions. ibid.
The ice cores told a completely different story – the climate seemed to be jumping all over the place from warm to cold and back again. ibid.
Through the 1980s the temperature of the planet kept on rising. ibid.
According to some it’s the greatest threat now facing mankind. But for more than twenty years a group of scientists has passionately argued that there is no climate crisis. They are the climate change sceptics, and they have turned global warming into the most hotly debated issue that Science has ever seen ... The sceptics would challenge everything about global warming. Iain Stewart, Earth: Climate Wars: Fightback
There are a lot of people who don’t want global warming to be true. ibid.
Industry was fighting back. A key part of their strategy was to highlight doubts about the science. ibid.
The satellite showed the world wasn’t warming; it was slightly cooling ... This result was in stark contrast to what other scientists were saying. It was a huge victory for the sceptics, and it soon became a key piece of evidence against global warming. ibid.
The sceptics hit back with a question: was the warming man-made or natural? ibid.
In 1992 almost every head of state and an army of reporters descended on Rio de Janeiro for the Earth Summit. ibid.
One of the hot topics in Rio was global warming. ibid.
They said the world wasn’t actually getting warmer ... Surely Science can tell us that without too much difficulty? ibid.
They searched the world getting evidence of other proxies ... Today’s temperatures are easily the warmest in a thousand years ... The hockey stick. It became one of the most controversial graphs in history. ibid.
Back in the seventeenth century there was a fifty-year period in which there didn’t appear to be any sun spots at all ... the Little Ice Age. ibid.
It’s become harder and harder to claim that there’s any scientific disagreement on the core issues. ibid.
The last thirty years have seen an epic battle over climate change. Iain Stewart, Earth: Climate Wars: Fight for the Future
It was the beginning of a new science – the climate model. ibid.
The models suggested that a doubling of carbon dioxide would warm the planet by about three degrees. ibid.
We could face a catastrophic warming in just a few years. ibid.
The effects of global warming are already happening faster than the models predict. ibid.
Greenland is losing ice at an ever-increasing rate. ibid.
Just what happened to the climate over eleven thousand years ago? ibid.