Still unsure about climate change? Have questions you'd like to ask a real live climate scientist? Join us for a live webchat with Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Monday 8 December 12.30 - 1.30pm

[KateHMumsnet]

As UN climate talks take place in Lima in an attempt to get agreement on how to cut carbon emissions worldwide, join us to ask your questions and discuss climate change with leading climate scientist Dr Emily Shuckburgh.

Dr Shuckburgh heads the Open Oceans research group at the British Antarctic Survey. She is also Chair of the Climate Science Communications Group at the Royal Meteorological Society and is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. She has acted as a scientific advisor to the UK Government and is a member of the Natural Environment Research Council's Strategic Programme Advisory Group.

Please join us in welcoming Dr Shuckburgh on Monday 8 December at 12.30pm, or post your questions in advance on this thread.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I'm looking forward to this very much :) no questions though. I'm fully signed up to the concept of climate change.

[oricella]

Thanks for joining - I'd like to ask a question not so much about climate change (I'm with Kitten above), but I would like to know how you feel about accusations that climate change is all just an elaborate hoax, and that as a scientist you are either actively duping people or are sadly misguided by the liberal crowd. And how scary is it that people like Inhofe can have such a powerful voice on the issue of climate change?

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Good question Oricella!

[Merguez]

Why would anyone be unsure about climate change, when the scientific establishment is virtually unanimously agreed that it is happening, and is due to rising carbon emissions caused by mankind's influence?

So, I'd like to ask if she thinks there's been a rise in climate scepticism in the past 5 years and if so what's fuelled it.

[MoreBeta]

I'd like to ask what would happen to her research funding if she came out and openly questioned whether climate change was happening.

[APocketfulOfSpondulix]

Very pleased to see this topic!

I would like to know how emissions can be curbed when the developing world is starting to become wealthier and demand for cars and commodities like beef and soy are rising.

[wr0ngs0cks]

In response to MoreBeta's question - How massive a salary would an oil company pay a scientist willing to question climate change?

[lapogus2]

Hi Emily, two questions:

1. Here's the last 10,000 years temperature from the GISP2 ice core proxy - snag.gy/tJ7z6.jpg - how can you be so certain are you that the recent warming is not just a continued recovery from the Little Ice Age?
   

1. Bjorn Lomborg recently said:
   

"We live in a world where one in six deaths are caused by easily curable infectious diseases; one in eight deaths stem from air pollution, mostly from cooking indoors with dung and twigs; and billions of people live in abject poverty, with no electricity and little food. We ought never to have entertained the notion that the world’s greatest challenge could be to reduce temperature rises in our generation by a fraction of a degree." Source: www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-says-that-the-un-climate-panel-s-latest-report-tells-a-story-that-politicians-would-prefer-to-ignore

Given this, and the many billions the CO2 emission reduction strategies will cost us all (by means of increased energy costs, which hit the poor the hardest), do you really still think that climate change is the biggest concern facing humankind?

[halfdrunkcoffee]

MNHQ, thank you for hosting a webchat on this very important topic. I hope something of substance will actually come out of COP20.

My question for Emily:

How are rising CO2 levels and the melting of the Arctic ice cap likely to affect the chemistry of the oceans and marine biodiversity?

[halfdrunkcoffee]

MoreBeta - do you mean if she questioned whether climate change was happening full stop, or whether humans were causing it?

[MoreBeta]

Either.

I am worried about research funding for scientists who do not accept that the debate is settled. There is always room for debate. I only hear one side of the debate in the media from scientists and rarely the other side. I want to hear both sides but don't know how much research funding there is for people who challenge the accepted view.

[Ecocalmist]

I am one who sees no sufficient reason to be unduly alarmed about our impact on climate. My question follows. Given the decadesmlong history of emotive environmental cries of alarm and crisis that have proven to be nonexistent or grossly grossly exaggerated, why should we not be sceptical of this current one given that the climate system itself has been contradicting the few verifiable claims made by campaigners to date?

[Pipsy6712]

Aircraft at LHR are doing a reduced climb trial (it's individ flight management syst (fms) on new planes interacting with a new satellite nav syst -which replaces radar based navigation and allows precision paths also with poss concentration of planes. The fms on new planes is designed to optimise fuel efficiency and thus proportedly reduces emissions. Perhaps total emissions reduced but wouldn't lower level flights mean whatever pollutants are emitted would then be concentrated (not just due to concentration of paths/paths) at lower levels which has a more immediate affect on those below these flight paths? What do you think of this suggestion and what key points do you think can be made to them about this ? I am worried about the impact on health.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Pipsy have you a link please about the reduced climb trial it's an area of some interest to me.

[purits]

Can I echo lapogus2 question. Back in the seventeenth century we went through a period so cold that the Thames froze. Then it got warmer. How do you know that we are set on a path to Armageddon, how do you know that this is not just a swing of the temperature-pendulum before it heads back to 'colder' again?

[oricella]

Loving the way some of these posts illustrate my question

The debate is alive and kicking, thanks to the media who give to the 3 %

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Unfortunately I will be out during the webchat but I'm looking forward to reading it later.

[Angeleno]

Welcome to MN Dr Shuckburgh!

My question is this: what single thing do you think we could all do to reduce global warming? Is there a small change that we could all make that would have a serious impact?

[weeklyshopping]

Hello Dr Shuckburgh

What's your opinion on the major party leaders when it comes to climate change - Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, Farage and Bennett? Can you give them each marks out of ten?

[lapogus2]

oricella - are you suggesting that sceptics should not be allowed to question the much-claimed certainty of catastrophic anthropological global warming? Scepticism is essential to good science. If you want consensus stick to politics.

Are we not allowed to point out that:

the state-of-the-art climate models are seriously flawed and have exaggerated the likely warming from extra CO2? -

www.drroyspencer.com/2014/02/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/

that Antarctic sea-ice extent has remains well above the 30 year average and even broke satellite era records this year? - nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png

that Antarctica is evidently not warming - Hadcrut4 area weighted 70-90S -
notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/image2.png (so much for polar amplification)

Global sea-ice area, total and anomaly:

arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
NH sea-ice volume: stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/screenhunter_4941-dec-05-19-49.gif?w=640

that average sea level rise is a very manageable 2mm per year, well in line with the pre-AGW era in the 20th century - www.psmsl.org/data/longrecords/amsterdam.sea.level (New York),

tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=1612340 (Hawaii)

that the polar bears are actually doing fine -

polarbearscience.com/2013/07/15/global-population-of-polar-bears-has-increased-by-2650-5700-since-2001/

that many glaciers have been in retreat since the 1760s, long before man-made CO2 emissions were significant - e.g.

soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/fieldwork2.html

As for alleged media bias - when was the last time you saw a sceptic interviewed on the BBC, Channel Four News? When did you last see any of the above questions raised by any journalist?

Our children have been indoctrinated about a non-problem, by dubious activist scientists, a lame media, and gullible teachers and politicians. e.g. climatelessons.blogspot.co.uk/p/climate-anxiety-reports-of-frightened.html

And let's not forget the '10:10 No Pressure' video which unbelievably was planned to be shown in schools throughout the UK - [warning - exploding children]

Meanwhile there has been no significant warming for 18 years, which is almost as long as the late 20th rise in temperatures which created all this alarmist panic.

[ClaraSky]

I hear this winter is going to be wet and wild like last year.

Can we expect our winters to be full of rain, rather than snow from now on?

I would like the possibility of a white Christmas and this is looking less and less likely!

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Pipsy from my understanding Heathrow are trialling getting up to height faster, not slower?

[oricella]

Lapogus -that's not what I am saying at all. I think science should be neither biased nor sceptic, but basically well.. science. Sometimes it leans one way,sometimes the other - in this case the consensus is pretty clear.

My original question is precisely about how scientists feel being called "dubious activist scientists" - so thank you for throwing in another excellent example.

[caramelshortbreadnowplease]

Hi Dr Shuckburgh!

I think there is a lot of information out there and this can be confusing. How could people be helped to understand where to turn to and how to question science constructively?

Are there any good blogs/columnists/magazines you can recommend?

[fiftieshousewife]

How are the talks going in Lima? I've not seen anything about them, must admit. Are they making progress?