Hi Bill, Paul, Dick and All
Thanks for the responses guys. I could add to Paul's list of unthinking, publicity-seeking and erroneous scientist quotes and give you more recent ones that appeared on a UK TV programme attempting to debunk climate change fears. Almost every argument that Bill raised was in the programme, and it reassured many here that the problem is spurious. It really isn't. I could counter every one of the points raised, though by then the moderators would tire of the debate.
Bill quoted the press in relation to 'global cooling'. Perhaps one thing that we have learned collectively since CCD reared its head is that we cannot rely on the press to give an accurate impression. They love to portray a dramatic picture, and unsubstantiated doom and gloom gets more than its fair share of exposure. We need to listen to not just scientists that give us the picture we want to hear, but to assess the worth of those relating the story, and try to get at the real consensus of those that know the topic very well.
For those of you that believe that CO2 lags behind climate change, or that the changes in the activity of the sun coupled with modulation by volcanic events and Earth circulatory systems explains recent trends in the Earth's climate, all I can do is plead with you to read that authoritative text (link copied again below - it is a 2.9Mb PDF file). The graphs alone make it crystal clear: models explaining the variation in both global and regional temperature agree well with the record until the last couple of decades (Figure SPM4). All now diverge, in step with the ever-rising load of both CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. Yes, water partially counters the effect, but the relative contributions of CO2, methane and water are well understood (see Figure SPM2).
This 4th Assessment series of reports by the IPCC had one big change from the previous ones: they now attempted to quantify the likelihood of certain effects and predicted outcomes. For example, on methane: 'The global atmospheric concentration of methane has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 715 ppb to 1732 ppb in the early 1990s, and was 1774 pp in 2005 .... It is *very likely* that the observed increase in methane concentration is due to anthropogenic activities ....' In IPCC terms, 'very likely' means >90% certain.
Dick: thanks for your comments. On minerals, I'm afraid that I'm no expert on CCD and can't really offer you anything on that. The comments on the effect of drought on CCD on late-season brood were first raised here by my compatriot and commercial beekeeper Murray McGregor, a man always worth paying attention to.
best wishes to all
Gavin
PS Those that would like to post their views here on the topic - please do have a look at the distilled wisdom of hundreds of the world's climatologists and see if your questions have been answered already:
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Pub_SPM-v2.pdf
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