The real climate multiplier – I dunno!

we are told that by 2110 the world will have experienced an unacceptable level of change which necessitates us all to make dramatic changes to our lives. The start of this period is commonly agreed to be about the 1970s (after the global cooling scare). So, we are now far enough into this scare to approximate the extent to which anyone of us should be experiencing problems as follows:
Where t = year, P = the total extent of problem due to climate by 2110 and dP = the increased problems due to climate, then it follows:

dP = (t – 1970) P / 140
dP = (41/140)  P  =  0.29 P

And therefore by inference we can calculate the final severity of the problem based on the current affect on us by the equation:

P = 3.4 * dP

So, to a first approximation, the problems we will experience are the increased problems due to weather we experience today multiplied by 3.4. Now, whilst we constantly get suggestions that this or that event “may be climate related”, if we turn it around and say: “what is the normal change anyone has seen”, the answer is ambiguous to say the least. Last week there was a round of press release based stories based on a  a study of Himalayan villagers which found:

• “Three-quarters of the interviewees said they believed the weather had been getting warmer over the past 10 years”
• “Nearly half the respondents thought there was less snow on the mountains than before”
• “Roughly half said they believed that some plant species were budding earlier than before and that mosquitoes had appeared in villages where none had been seen before.”
• ” At least a third said new crop pests or new weeds had emerged in places where they farmed.”

(source: weatheronline.co.uk)

Or to invert their clear bias of these “impartial observers”:

• A quarter  believed the weather had not been getting warmer over the past 10 years
• Over half the respondents thought there just as much snow on the mountains than before
• Roughly half thought plant species were not budding earlier
• Roughly half thought mosquitoes had not appeared in villages where none had been seen before.
• Just under two thirds said no new crop pests or weeds had emerged in places where they farmed.

In other words, despite: the intensive media coverage on the world getting warmer which can have hardly failed to reach any corner of our globe; the presence of people who from their press release very clearly had a massive bias on the subject,  and whose presence could only highlight the “importance” of  “global warming”, a quarter  of the villagers still couldn’t be persuaded that the climate had changed.
Moreover they either were not asked (seems unlikely) or did not provide sufficiently scary answers on the things you might expect them to really be concerned about:

• Reduced crop yields
• Illness
• Storms
• Tornadoes (wink)

In short, we can summarise all these “changes” as what would best be described as idle gossip about the weather. What is 3.4 times that? Answer: not a lot!
Personally there was a time when I really did think the lack of snow in the winter could be a real indicator of that change … then we had the last two winters which just about scotched that one. Every spring I keep thinking I should mark the day the snowdrops or beech leaves come out: but I forget because it really is so unimportant and nothing really seems to have changed.
But isn’t that the real state of “global warming”? Whatever the change there may have been, it is so subtle that those who are desperate to see change will see change where there is none, those who don’t want to see change, will reject any change they do see, and the rest remain entirely agnostic in the face of an overwhelming lack of evidence of any significant change affecting them or anyone else they know.
So, in another 100 years, we can basically say the best approximation to the impact of global warming on us individually will be 3.4 times the extent of global warming impacts we see now. But the current impacts are so small even the scientists struggle to find any change: no measurable increase in extremes of weather, no increase in tornadoes, no CO2 signature on the global sea level and all we are left with is a change in Arctic sea ice since measurements began … and anecdotal evidence of similar melting at the beginning of the 20th century. If even real scientists struggle to see any change no wonder the rest of us struggle!
And isn’t that the real point. Whatever the impact of the rising CO2 is going to be, anybody can now estimate the change that they would experience simply by scaling up their own personal experience. So what is 3.4 times something so small it can hardly be measured?
As Beefy Bert would say: “I dunno”!