Climate change/warming is not expected to affect all parts of the globe uniformly. I don't know the specific predictions for Europe. Part of the problem with the anecdotes you and I mentioned is that we are too close to the events in time. We will only know that we are right or wrong many years from now.adrian2 wrote: And in Europe and Russia the winters have been sharply colder lately. On the global scale... I don't know. Are the ocean levels rising significantly?
Some regional data on water levels from the IPCC here.
This wouldn't be an bad thing economically for Asia or Europe. Our claim to this passage in in dispute internationally so I'm not sure that Canada would benefit that much, other than perhaps allowing for BC to trade more with eastern Canada (just guessing)?adrian2 wrote:Assuming you don't consider this a bad thing, doesn't it mean that global warming, if it's happening, might have some good consequences (especially for us Canadians)?
On a side note - I was at an arctic science conference last year and attended a talk that pointed out that the opening of the northwest passage has not gone unnoticed by those collecting revenue at the Panama Canal. They are quite worried about the lose of income from ships that choose the new route...perhaps that is useful information for investors?
Major shifts in oceanic circulation (conveyor belts) are know to occur very rapidly based on long-term proxy records. The danger is that a change in salinity (due to influx of fresh water from melted ice), or weather patterns elsewhere, could affect these patterns. This would affect the amount of heat reaching Europe, for example, if the Gulf stream were to change because of lots of fresh water coming from the Arctic Ocean.adrian2 wrote:WADR to you and fellow scientists: why should we believe you now more than a few decades ago when the consensus was that we're heading into a mini Ice-Age (global cooling)? Were those scientists stupid and today's crop a cut above? FWIW, at that time the CO2 level had been increasing for many years (according to the Keeling curve) - oh wait, CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, compared to water vapour.
The main point is that climate change/warming or whatever you want to call it is occurring, (although I think you are disputing this?), and the change in our climate patterns could have unexpected consequences (such as the example above), and not all of them are pleasant.
WRT your question of why should you believe scientists, I'd have to say that we are the best chance that society has in learning about the world around us in a reliable manner.
We come up with a plausible explanation or idea about how some phenomenon operates and then try to prove it wrong (in the Popperian sense). If the idea withstands several tests then it is given some weight as a possible explanation. In some fields of science, tests of ideas are very difficult and often require a time series. However, there are other means to test the ideas, such as reverse forecasting....ie, can the models predict past climates (yes they can), or tests of secondary predictions.
If an idea is shown to be wrong then it is re-evaluated: either by tossing it out the window, or by modifying it to better describe the phenomenon of interest. It is a continual process of refinement - how could it be otherwise?
Do you have a better method in mind for doing science?