By
TRCar54, January 30, 2007
This topic seems to come up in a number of posts. I was just curious if maybe the large ice caps that we were used to seeing during the past century were the anomaly and not the norm???
Perhaps the enormity of the of the ice caps were the result of the Little Ice Age which dramatically cooled most of the Earth from the middle of the 15th century through the mid to late 19th century.
Even the scientists disagree on this one.
There is no disagreement among the scientists that global warming is man-made.
The issue is how bad will things really get: very, very bad or just plain bad.
This year in New England, it has snowed maybe 3 times so far, all 3 times less than 1 inch and melting the next day (no perminent snow). Last year was the exact opposite where we had snow on the ground perminently from the beginning of November through the end of March and some days we would be struck with 9" or more. Winter of 04'-05' when I was a senior in High School, we had only 1 snow day and I don't seem to remember it snowing much. What I did remember was the 2 weeks straight we had in January where it was -5 degrees by day and -10 by night. I seem to remember winter 03'-04' also being similar, with little snow, but sudden and severe cold bouts.
What am I trying to show here? It was never like this when I was growing up in the early 90s. I seem to remember it snowing like clockwork around November and melting by March, you could almost set your calendar to it. Now, the weather is all over the place. On day, its snowing, the next its 45 degrees and melting, the next it strikes down to 5 degrees. If this isn't the result of humans and global warming, then god must be really pissed off.
the earth goes through natural warming and cooling cycles, we need to have a larger scope of whats hot and whats cold.
Some people, including the energy industry executives, blame global warming on natural. They disregard scientists concensus that GW is man made. A compelling study was done using climate data immediately after 9/11.
Ironically, 9/11 gave scientists an opportunity to study the climate because there was zero airplane in the air on the days following the tragedy. What the scientists found was shocking, even to scientists. It was that the temperature difference on the days after 9-11 when no airplane was allowed spiked tremendously. Scientists have been studying this sort of data before, but they have never seen a spike of this magnitude before. The scientists concluded that during normal air travel days the particulates (pollutants) from the jet engine of airplanes covered the US like a sunshade, thereby reducing the temperature during the day, i.e. the particulate had a cooling effect; however, during the days after 9-11 there was no more particulate to screen against the sun because every single airplane was grounded. Hence, this spike in temperature difference. The particulate was actually lowering temperature, and at the same time, the burning of fossil increases the temperature. What this suggest is that the effect of burning fossile fuel has been masked by the cooling effect of the particulate, and is worse than what has been predicted. But the point is the data shows man's activity does have a dramatic effect on the climate. Study on 9-11 and other studies have shown people can longer say global warming is the natural warming-cooling cycle of the earth. The source of the warming is us.
i'm not saying that man has had no affect, i think tho that the affect of man is much less than that of nature.
This year in Colorado we have seen the coldest worst winter in 10 years. We are looking at 8 snowstorms one weekend after another... I would welcome some warm weather... My utility bill went up 60% from last year
Bikeman982
I think temperatures are getting more extreme each year.
Jut look at all the records being broken and how long they were held.
Global warming doesn't neccessarily mean that where ever you live is going to go up by exactly 1 degree for each day of the year compared to the last year. It means on a global scale, earth's average temperature is going up. That may mean in Colorado its 10 degrees less than normal and snowing everyday, but in New England, its 11 degrees higher than normal and bright and sunny. Rapid temperature swings, cold spells, and sudden temperature drops and raises are common effects attributed to global warming, much like El Nino and La Nina. Don't think just because it feels like Siberia in Colorado, global warming isn't happening.
Study climatology data and you will find our weather cycles in patterns, In Colorado we have been in a drought for 7 to 10 years and we are now coming out of it. Everything is on a cycle... Overall the world is coming out of its last ice age… The current media hype has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics…
Study climatology data and you will find our weather cycles in patterns, In Colorado we have been in a drought for 7 to 10 years and we are now coming out of it. Everything is on a cycle... Overall the world is coming out of its last ice age… The current media hype has nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics…
How the media is blaming bad weather on GW is beside the point. Sure, we have people blaming everything on GW. Ignore what they're saying, and listen to the scientists. Climate scientists do not use the media to base its conclusion. They use objective data. They are saying GW is real, is man-made, an is going to wreck havok not just to the weather but to economic well being and our standard of living in the future.
How can anyone in their right mind believe that burning billions of barrels of oil and fossil fuels each year, along with all the other horrible things we do, not affect our environment? Have you ever driven behind a gas-guzzling diesel school bus and had an uncontrollable urge to roll up the windows and close off the air condition vents? This is not some complex theorum of calculus.
They are saying GW is real, is man-made, an is going to wreck havok not just to the weather but to economic well being and our standard of living in the future.It is not in doubt whether or not the Earth is warming, but if it is caused naturally or chemically.
If it is caused by man, then why can we track multiple periods of severely cold weather and warm weather?
Remember that everything in nature operates on cycles. Too many predators and they will die off due to lack of food...which causes an increase in prey because of lack of predators...which causes....
Even the Sun flips magnetic polarity every 11 years. In fact, some folks (not me) believe that the Earth's magnetic fields change every few thousand years...maybe that is causing the cycles.
It is difficult to tell these things when only observing them for 100 years.
In fact, some folks (not me) believe that the Earth's magnetic fields change every few thousand years...maybe that is causing the cycles.
Its true, they have been measuring the magnetic north pole and its drifting towards Siberia by 25 miles a year!
http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/...pole_shift.html
I dont mean drifting, I mean flipping completely. The reason that the Earth's magnetic poles "drift" is due to precession (the slowing of earths rotation as it revolves around the sun....sort of like a spinning top as it slows down). In fact, in about 10K years, the "north star" will be Vega.
The reason that the sun's magnetic poles flip is due to a process called differential rotation. Unlike the earth, the sun is not a rigid body and since (like the earth) some of the mass is located further (at the equator) from the center of gravity. This mass rotates a bit slower than the mass at the poles. The magnetic field lines get "twisted" and end up flipping. This cannot happen on earth.
Back on topic, I still dont think that man has made enough of an impact in the past 100 years to alter the earths climate enough to cause it to warm significantly. Now, maybe it is a combination of everything that has man has done since he has been on this planet...and if that is the case, we are screwed and there is no use worrying.
Bikeman982
I think all the air polution has had an effect on the global climate.
I'm not totally convinced... Either way I'm not willing to give up my corolla... or my sienna... Sorry great great great great grandchildren your up the creak.
Bikeman982
I'm not totally convinced... Either way I'm not willing to give up my corolla... or my sienna... Sorry great great great great grandchildren your up the creak.You won't have to - the government is increasingly restricting vehicle emissions as the new models come out.
By the time your car dies, there will be a lot less pollution going into the air.
You won't have to - the government is increasingly restricting vehicle emissions as the new models come out.I'm not totally convinced... Either way I'm not willing to give up my corolla... or my sienna... Sorry great great great great grandchildren your up the creak.
By the time your car dies, there will be a lot less pollution going into the air.
Sorry Bikeman, no matter how much restrictions are put into vehicle emissions, pollution will only get worst in the future, as the number of vehicles increase as a result of population growth. The population in the USA is growing--a lot of immigrants are fresh off the boat.
Also, in hotly developing countries like China and India, there is a mega booming auto industries, in which car purchase have sky rocketed due to increase wealth of the proletariat. There's not much we can do about those countries.
I agree the grandchildren are screwed because people in the USA are refusing to change and people in the developing world cares less.
Bikeman982
Then the solution will have to be world-wide.You won't have to - the government is increasingly restricting vehicle emissions as the new models come out.I'm not totally convinced... Either way I'm not willing to give up my corolla... or my sienna... Sorry great great great great grandchildren your up the creak.
By the time your car dies, there will be a lot less pollution going into the air.
Sorry Bikeman, no matter how much restrictions are put into vehicle emissions, pollution will only get worst in the future, as the number of vehicles increase as a result of population growth. The population in the USA is growing--a lot of immigrants are fresh off the boat.
Also, in hotly developing countries like China and India, there is a mega booming auto industries, in which car purchase have sky rocketed due to increase wealth of the proletariat. There's not much we can do about those countries.
I agree the grandchildren are screwed because people in the USA are refusing to change and people in the developing world cares less.
I beleive what is generally said about GW (that it is man-made) is basically correct, though we have some long weather cycles that can exacerbate it. Eg we are having a terrible drought in SE australia; most of the population are on water restrictions (though not here in Dubbo, and not in Wagga Wagga), we are having terrible heatwaves. Thing is it was like this for the first 15 or so years onf the 1900s and 1800s. However, whilst SE australia actually stands to gain an extra 40% rainfall due to GW (according to 'an inconvinient truth'), it will be to the detrement of Asia. A lack of himylayan snowfalls will mean asian water supply goes down 40%.
What to do?
I...
*Use green power (avalable thru local electricity concern)
*Fill up with ethanol fuel blends (the future auto industry WILL be dictated by finite oil supplies and GW)
*When I next replace my vehicle get another small car, or even a hybrid.
I have not.............
...........Have you ever driven behind a gas-guzzling diesel school bus.........
Let me add my two cents here. As a scientist that has worked on several models such as these and worked in field research facilitys, national labs, and universities on climatology, oceanographic, and numerous physics modeling and field work (DoE type of work) - I've got a pretty good idea of what we have learned.
Problem is always with scale - how far do you look back, how long will these processes take, how soon is too soon, how late is too late, etc. Also depends on where and how the information is being presented - is it from a climatologists (hundreds to thousands of years scale) or meterologists (hours, days, years scale).
As for pulling trends from past years datas, or even looking at data from the past 3 years, or 5 years, or even 10-20 years ago - may look very impressive - but you cannot accurately paint a picture if you look at only aspect on a microscoptic scale. Many make for more exciting reading or spawn a good number of publications, but does little to advance the scientific community's understanding.
Here are some of the most common misconceptions to date (As told by George Taylor, Climatologist at Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, President - American Association of State Climatologists, Memeber - American Meteorological Society)
HYPE
Global warming may lead to an ice age.
TRUTH
The idea of “global warming creating an ice age” is based on a historical event that DID happen. And can’t history repeat itself? The Younger Dryas period was a sudden “mini ice age” that occurred 10,000 or so years ago when global warming (caused by the end of the last ice age) melted large amounts of continental ice, releasing massive amounts of fresh water and changing the course of ocean currents. But the ice over North America at the time was a mile thick! Sea levels were 200 feet lower than at present. One cannot compare the Younger Dryas with the 21st century!
HYPE
Weather extremes such as droughts, floods, hurricane, tornadoes, and heat waves have become more common.
TRUTH
Scientists have studied this issue and come to the opposite conclusion: extreme events are becoming LESS common. Atlantic hurricanes were much more numerous from 1950 to 1975 than from 1975 to present. Hailstorms in the US are 35% less common than they were fifty years ago. Extreme rainfall in the US at the end of the20th century is comparable to what it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Roger Pielke, Jr, in the journal Climatic Change (1999) said “it is essentially impossible to attribute any particular weather event to global warming." For flooding, Pielke did list a number of important non-climatic factors that have the potential to influence flooding in the future, including deteriorating dams and levees, changes in land use, building in flood-prone areas, governmental policies, as well as other societal influences. Pielke, R.A., JR. 1999. Nine fallacies of floods. Climatic Change 42: 413-438.
HYPE
In the United States, recent years have been the warmest on record.
TRUTH
The warmest decade in the last 100 years in the U.S. was the
1930s; the warmest year was 1934.
HYPE
Climate has been stable for a long time but now is getting increasingly extreme.
TRUTH
Climate is always changing, on a variety of time scales – from a few years to millennia. There is strong evidence that climate variability is greater during cold periods than during warm periods, so a moderate warming would appear to produce a more stable climate.
HYPE
CO2 is a pollutant.
TRUTH
CO2 is an essential nutrient for plants. Plants absorb CO2 and release oxygen, while animals inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Researchers have proven that higher CO2 concentrations enable plants to grow faster and give them better drought tolerance.
HYPE
CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas.
TRUTH
Not even close. Most of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, which is about 100 times as abundant in the atmosphere as CO2 and thus has a much larger effect.
HYPE
The greenhouse effect is a bad thing.
TRUTH
The greenhouse effect is necessary for life on earth as we know it, were it not for the greenhouse effect, temperatures on Earth would be about 60 degrees F (33°C) colder than they are at present. The global warming discussions center on the claims that human enhancement of the greenhouse will raise temperatures, and that these will be large compared with natural variations.
HYPE
Modeling the earth's climate is nearly an exact science.
TRUTH
General Circulation Models (GCMs) vary by a factor of 3 in their forecasts; they require arbitrary adjustments; and they cannot properly simulate clouds. Their forecasts of substantial warming depend on a positive feedback from atmospheric water vapor (WV). Many of the natural variations (sunlight, El Niño, volcanoes, and so on) cannot be predicted with any skill in the future.
HYPE
The sun is a constant source of energy.
TRUTH
The sun’s radiation varies over many time scales, from short (11 year sunspot cycle, 20-27 year magnetic field) to medium (170- and 210-year cycles) to long (tens of thousands of years). Northern hemisphere temperature variations over the last 200 years closely match estimated solar intensity, as one would expect.
HYPE
Glaciers all over the world are letting because of global warming.
TRUTH
Actually, this is somewhat true, but it is unlikely that changes in glaciers are affected by recent climate changes. According to the Glacier Program at Rice University (http://www.glacier.rice.edu), the response time to climate changes for different sizes of glaciers are as follows:
ice sheet 100,000 to 10,000 years
large valley glacier 10,000 to 1,000 years
small valley glacier 1,000 to 100 years
For very large glaciers such as the Antarctic Ice Sheet, considerable time is needed for the ice sheet to respond to any environmental changes. Changes in climate may take tens of thousands of years before the entire ice sheet has adjusted to changing, and by that time, the climate may have changed again.
HYPE
Summers will be extremely hot and dry.
TRUTH
According to greenhouse physics, the effects of increases in greenhouse gases will be much more significant in the driest air. This occurs in the coldest regions (cold air is able to hold much less water, in the form of water vapor, than warm air) – the polar regions, in winter, at night. Temperature effects in tropical or mid-latitude regions and in summer are expected to be much less significant.
Thanks for all of the great information!!
Bikeman982
It is difficult to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp, when you are up to your neck in alligators -
meaning when you can't breathe because the air is too polluted, too many cars take up your roads and put out bad exhaust, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, etc. occupy the news, the glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, drought is common, etc., it makes little difference if Global Warming is true or not.
Topic List: Go to Everything Else
