Is It Really That Cold?

[magekillr]

Yes, the mid-Atlantic region appears headed toward an epic snow storm as amazing moisture feeds into what is already a gigantic system, according to the Capital Weather Gang.

 

But while the anti-science crowd will no doubt tout that as evidence we arent warming just as they did with the cold snap in early January in fact, climate science predicts we will see more extreme precipitation events year-round as warming puts more moisture into the atmosphere [see Was the Blizzard of 2009″ a global warming type of record snowfall or an opportunity for the media to blow the extreme weather story (again)?].

 

Indeed, the January cold snap not only didnt prove the case for (nonexistent) global cooling it turns out that January was uber-hot around the globe! As leading anti-science guy Roy Spencer posted Thursday (including the figure above):

 

The global-average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly soared to +0.72 deg. C in January, 2010. This is the warmest January in the 32-year satellite-based data record.

 

Note the global-average warmth is approaching the warmth reached during the 1997-98 El Nino, which peaked in February of 1998.

 

Of course, right now were only in a moderate El Nino. In 97-98, we had a monster El Nino. And Spencer doesnt mention that this record is especially impressive because were at the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.

 

The point is, notwithstanding the all-too-effective disinformation campaign of the anti-science crowd, its getting hotter thanks primarily to human emissions.

 

The satellite record itself clearly shows the long-term warming trend, especially when you remove the stratospheric cooling influences.

 

You can plot the UAH temperature data yourself:

 

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/05/hottest-january-in-uah-satellite-record-roy-spencer-global-warming/

 

This is a thread to discuss climate change, especially for the deniers. So those who deny climate change, just come on out of the woodwork.

[obfuscator]

Denial? Not outright. It's certainly possible global warming exists, and we have something to do with it. But my question to you is this: Why the [bleep] should governments be spending billions and trillions of dollars attempting to fix an "issue" so surounded by controversy that little or no concrete evidence exists?

 

Especially when such massive amounts of money could be put to so much better use.

[Alg]

Might help California out of its drought... :P

 

Shouldn't matter whether or not you think it's happening but whether or not you think the conditions that lead to it should be changed anyway. EX: Why pump all that crap into the atmosphere when there are better ways available that don't have to? Why use nonrenewable power for everything when there are areas where renewable power can be used?

Seems that even within the support of global warming there are divisions. You have some people that say calling it warming is inaccurate because it COULD lead to cooling. Personally, I'd think their side makes more sense...

 

As for the denial end...

The climate is going to change whether or not we're doing anything about it. It was different a few years ago, it was different thousands of years ago, it was different millions of years ago. Blaming humanity for its change seems like an unnecessary smear campaign against the industrialized countries. The author of your article can say as much as s/he likes about the "anti-science" views of its opposition but I have my doubts that there are many people that actually do know all of the science behind it.

 

As for the support end:

Saying that nothing is going to happen and that we should continue on as we have been is ridiculous. There's only so much earth and a finite amount of resources. Plus, pollution is not good. That is blatantly obvious. Things do need to change if we don't want to go extinct from lack of resources.

[obfuscator]

Might help California out of its drought... :P

 

Shouldn't matter whether or not you think it's happening but whether or not you think the conditions that lead to it should be changed anyway. EX: Why pump all that crap into the atmosphere when there are better ways available that don't have to? Why use nonrenewable power for everything when there are areas where renewable power can be used?

 

Why spend billions of dollars making wind farms that can only be used when it's windy? Why start using "water-efficient" toilets that clog the minute anything solid goes into them? Why use hybrid cars that are more expensive to maintain, have poor fuel economy, and don't save much at all? Why use ethanol fuel as an alternative to fossil when the emissions are just as bad and production is largely impractical?

 

The question I'm trying to raise here is: Is it worth it?

 

If we had ireffutable proof that we were causing global warming and the planet would explode in 10 years, oh and "findings" and "commissions" looked at both sides of the story, and articles didn't have to exagerate facts, oh and graphs didn't have to be overweighted...then, maybe then, it would be worth it.

 

But as of now?...Lets stop the public panic and donate that money to poor children in africa. Because, I'm sorry, but I fail to see how spending billions of dollars to "try" to lower earth's temperature by 1 degree is worth more than a human life.

 

In response to your edits: I agree absolutely the environment shouldn't be abused. Personally I turn off all lights when I'm not using them, eat a lot of vegetables(as opposed to meat), take the bus/bike 95% of the travelling I do, try to minimize my waste. But I do that because I don't want to abuse our environment, not because I'm sold into some media-induced panic.

[Alg]

I'd say it is worth it solely because we can't rely on fossil fuels forever because there is only so much remaining. If we want to be able to sustain our lifestyles we need to use resources that can be sustained in a sustainable way. We're probably going about it wrong, yes, but that just means we have to try a bit harder before touting something as the next miracle fuel.

 

Oh right, the rest of the post... :oops:

I'd say I feel the same way though. I'm skeptical of the concept, but I still feel that we should do what we can to prevent it because it really can't hurt to stop using nonrenewable power.

[obfuscator]

I'd say it is worth it solely because we can't rely on fossil fuels forever because there is only so much remaining. If we want to be able to sustain our lifestyles we need to use resources that can be sustained in a sustainable way. We're probably going about it wrong, yes, but that just means we have to try a bit harder before touting something as the next miracle fuel.

 

And I agree with you completely. We will one day run out of fossil fuels - that much is undeniable. But if we are trying to replace them, it should be because of that fact, not because they "might" be bad for the environment. And yes, a [cabbage]load more research needs to be done into fuel alternatives, as hybrid cars that actually save fuel are largely impractical and quite expensive, and I already made the ethanol point.

[Madmanpur3]

Y Guy, there are plenty of ways we can get renewable energy that are practical via nature. The sun comes out every day, gravity is free, as is wind. What the world needs to do (or at least the more developed countries) is focus on harnessing the power of the sun, gravity, and wind at a much higher ratio than what we're doing now.

 

As for global climate change, sure it may be a problem (as someone's already mentioned - the earth goes through natural periods of climate change), but I think it should be the 'experts' doing the research on it and keeping the results to themselves until they know with a good degree of certainty what the deal is. Until then stop all the propaganda, yes we should all be making an effort to pollute less, recycle more, reduce our carbon footprint etc, etc, but we shouldn't be doing all that because of "global warming", rather because it's simply more logical.

[Faux]

warmest january in about a decade!!! start panicking

[warri0r45]

But as of now?...Lets stop the public panic and donate that money to poor children in africa. Because, I'm sorry, but I fail to see how spending billions of dollars to "try" to lower earth's temperature by 1 degree is worth more than a human life.

 

It's not just for aesthetic reasons. As far as I know a lot of it is to do with human life (and the lives of other species). You see, the success of crop production is based on temperature, and higher temps means less yields. Less crop yields means less food, which is especially dire for those that really need it badly. Higher temps also means more extinctions, but personally I'm not as worried about that prospect.

 

As for global warming, it's happening, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's coinciding with rapid industrialisation. Heaps of research has concluded that most post 1950s warming is due largely to human influence and a lot of modeling (however uncertain some of it may be) shows that warming can't be accounted for unless you include our emissions into the picture. The thing with modeling is that we have margins for error. Some uncertainties =/= they're completely wrong. I wouldn't be comfortable putting a figure on our contributions (I'll leave that to the experts to estimate), but I am comfortable saying we're partly to blame.

[pegpenguin]

Of course we are partly to blame, we live on this planet, everything affects everything else thats how it goes. I personally don't believe in global warming propaganda crap, I don't believe in any kind of propaganda. I do believe the fact that the climates a little iffy, but instead of panicking just be smarter about how wasteful you are. It's really that simple.

 

As for renewable energy I don't know too much about them, I just know we can't grow enough corn for ethanol, solar power is too expensive for the average consumer, same with hybrids. I've seen a lot of crazy helium ideas coming out of europe lately for automobiles, and I think they're a great idea if they were more efficient...

[Asmodeous4]

Hydrogen seems an effective alternative but from the little I know if it, it is very hard to extract from the ground and is extremely expensive.

[michel555555]

Hydrogen seems an effective alternative but from the little I know if it, it is very hard to extract from the ground and is extremely expensive.

 

hydrogen will never be effective because we currently lack any materials that are actually strong enough to store it in high enough quantities to be used for medium length trips. ever see arny actually drive his hydrogen powered hummer around for anything other then a meeting with enviromentalists?

 

There used to be a car that was made in california that was completly electric and had good enough milage for the average american to drive. But the project was scrapped and replaced with... get this... the hummer.

 

If anyone wants to find out more look up the EV-1 i think it was called or rent or buy the movie "who killed the electric car".

 

And i hate that you used the term deniers in your post. No one thinks that the climate is not shifting. What is doubted is whether or not humans are actually the cause.

 

Yes polluting is bad but have you actually seen any of the stratagies that people are proposing to stop climate change? I'll never forget one "scientist", i use that word with the utmost distaste, wanted to create a massive human made volcanic eruption..

 

And the carbon credit thing that was proposed by al gore i think it was? doesn't do anything to actually help the environment. its just a tax to be sent to all companies who pollute and offers no incentive to actually stop that.

[warri0r45]

Hydrogen seems an effective alternative but from the little I know if it, it is very hard to extract from the ground and is extremely expensive.

 

hydrogen will never be effective because we currently lack any materials that are actually strong enough to store it in high enough quantities to be used for medium length trips. ever see arny actually drive his hydrogen powered hummer around for anything other then a meeting with enviromentalists?

 

There used to be a car that was made in california that was completly electric and had good enough milage for the average american to drive. But the project was scrapped and replaced with... get this... the hummer.

 

If anyone wants to find out more look up the EV-1 i think it was called or rent or buy the movie "who killed the electric car".

 

And i hate that you used the term deniers in your post. No one thinks that the climate is not shifting. What is doubted is whether or not humans are actually the cause.

 

Yes polluting is bad but have you actually seen any of the stratagies that people are proposing to stop climate change? I'll never forget one "scientist", i use that word with the utmost distaste, wanted to create a massive human made volcanic eruption..

 

And the carbon credit thing that was proposed by al gore i think it was? doesn't do anything to actually help the environment. its just a tax to be sent to all companies who pollute and offers no incentive to actually stop that.

 

How is a carbon tax not an incentive to stop polluting?

 

I'm seeing a trend where climate change skeptics seem to be preoccupied with proposed policy on climate change rather than the science behind it... Either that or picking up on mistakes or infering a global conspiracy from isolated incidents.

[magekillr]

It's pretty funny, warri0r, that the supposed free-market types are the ones who don't want a carbon tax to combat it. In fact, as most economists will tell you--new Keynesian, neo Keynesian, Chicago, libertarian--a carbon tax is the best way at offsetting climate change. Cap and trade is alright, but a carbon tax is much better.

 

I mean, what happened to personal responsibility and letting the market solve it? You do that by taxing carbon so that its negative externalities are out in the open for all to see. Then rather than subsidizing industries with government money, the market finds ways so that they don't have to pay the carbon tax. It's pretty simple, it's pro-free market.

 

Of course I'd like government subsidizing of clean energy on top of this tax, but if they really praised and loved the free market as much as they say, they'd support a carbon tax and no government subsidization of any industry--be it nuclear, clean coal, oil, solar, wind, or hydroelectric. Nuclear wouldn't survive without government backing, as it's a very risky investment (something like 50% default on their loans; no Wall Street investor is going to bet on a 50% chance of losing).

 

All of this talk about leaving our children with debt, which is ridiculous in the first place as poverty and unemployment are concrete whereas the "burden of debt" which has been conjured out of their imagination is...imaginary, yet they're perfectly willing to leave them with a barren world with acidified oceans, starvation and without enough water, all on the premise that they don't want to pay extra taxes.

 

It's why when you get right down to it, they're doing everything they can to avoid paying taxes; denial of the economics, denial that they support socialism for oil and other fossil fuels so they can pay less, and flat out denial of the science of climate change.

[exodus199]

I don't deny climate change but just cannot see a good reason to care.

 

Humanity is going to end one way or another (probably relatively soon) and so a future generation will be alive when the world ends, and I just can't really see why it should be such a big difference if it is in 100 years or 100000 years, we're just prolonging the inevitable which I don't have a problem with, but I can't see a reason to decrease our quality of life (i.e cutting back on pollution etc) for an ultimately pointless endeavour.

[dusqi]

I don't deny climate change but just cannot see a good reason to care.

 

Humanity is going to end one way or another (probably relatively soon) and so a future generation will be alive when the world ends, and I just can't really see why it should be such a big difference if it is in 100 years or 100000 years, we're just prolonging the inevitable which I don't have a problem with, but I can't see a reason to decrease our quality of life (i.e cutting back on pollution etc) for an ultimately pointless endeavour.

 

hahaha, what a selfish b******. "Screw my children, it's more important to me that I can drive to school in a tank."

 

Why do you get up in the morning anyway? You're going to die one day. What an "ultimately pointless endeavour".

 

 

I wouldn't be comfortable putting a figure on our contributions (I'll leave that to the experts to estimate), but I am comfortable saying we're partly to blame.

 

It's OK, "the experts" already did it. It's a greater than 95% chance that we're causing it.

 

 

Because, I'm sorry, but I fail to see how spending billions of dollars to "try" to lower earth's temperature by 1 degree is worth more than a human life.

 

2oC is already almost certain. But why have governments around the world recently agreed to try set a ceiling of 2oC (despite them having no intention of actually doing anything to achieve this)? because beyond that the scientists say that it gets to the situation where things spiral out of control. Ice starts melting in various northern places, releasing previously trapped methane into the atmosphere which then makes it even hotter and leads to even more ice melting and rainforests dying, etc.etc.

 

 

Why the [bleep] should governments be spending billions and trillions of dollars attempting to fix an "issue" so surounded by controversy that little or no concrete evidence exists?

 

Yeah, only thousands of pages of IPCC reports by top scientists around the world and thousands of scientific papers in peer reviewed journals.

 

 

You have some people that say calling it warming is inaccurate because it COULD lead to cooling. Personally, I'd think their side makes more sense...

 

I read that the term used was changed to "climate change" from "global warming" because in some places it could get colder, but more importantly "climate change" sounds far less scary. In fact, the globe is still warming - so "global warming" is an accurate term.

 

 

but I think it should be the 'experts' doing the research on it and keeping the results to themselves until they know with a good degree of certainty what the deal is. Until then stop all the propaganda

 

Yeah, because "greater than 95%" isn't certain enough. The experts already did their research on it, and they published it, expecting people to do something about it, but have been greatly disillusioned ever since.

 

 

 

 

Even The Economist (bastion of corporate interests) said that it's better to spend the 1% or so of GDP on combating global warming, than suffer the likely massive consequences of doing nothing.

[Rebdragon]

I will "come out of the woodwork" and say that from what I've read from the news sources I frequent human-based climate change and the immediate necessity of renewable energy all seems like bulls**t. I will not debate though, because I know I don't have the will or stored sources to actually debate ten people at the same time over a science that's really become nothing but politics.

 

Sorry, have a fun time agreeing with yourselves. If you have any questions I'll answer em if they're quick, but I'm really busy lately so I can't engage in actual debate.

[assassin_696]

Having now studied climate science as part of my degree, I'll just say this: climate science is massively complicated, far more so than I ever appreciated. To come to any conclusion on it based on casual reading of news articles would probably be foolish and naive. The evidence is pretty clear that we're accelerating the greenhouse gas effect, the actual effects of this are very hard to predict but although a global increase of 1oC might not seem significant given the number of feedback mechanisms in the climate it could potentially be very serious.

[magekillr]

A very very sobering article about climate change. So even if you deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming, I'm sure you'd agree to the effect that CO2 has on our oceans and the need to cut it down to zero:

 

The acidification of the ocean today is bigger and faster than anything geologists can find in the fossil record over the past 65 million years. Indeed, its speed and strength — Ridgwell estimate that current ocean acidification is taking place at ten times the rate that preceded the mass extinction 55 million years ago — may spell doom for many marine species, particularly ones that live in the deep ocean.

 

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2241

[Nenga]

A very very sobering article about climate change. So even if you deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming, I'm sure you'd agree to the effect that CO2 has on our oceans and the need to cut it down to zero:

 

The acidification of the ocean today is bigger and faster than anything geologists can find in the fossil record over the past 65 million years. Indeed, its speed and strength Ridgwell estimate that current ocean acidification is taking place at ten times the rate that preceded the mass extinction 55 million years ago may spell doom for many marine species, particularly ones that live in the deep ocean.

 

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2241

While it's an overwhelming amount of CO2 that is the problem if we eliminate it all we won't have enough heat.

[Alg]

A very very sobering article about climate change. So even if you deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming, I'm sure you'd agree to the effect that CO2 has on our oceans and the need to cut it down to zero:

 

The acidification of the ocean today is bigger and faster than anything geologists can find in the fossil record over the past 65 million years. Indeed, its speed and strength Ridgwell estimate that current ocean acidification is taking place at ten times the rate that preceded the mass extinction 55 million years ago may spell doom for many marine species, particularly ones that live in the deep ocean.

 

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2241

Doesn't that also relate to overfishing and pollution?

[EarthySun]

The climate data that 'proved' Global Warming was faked. Luckily, I never believed in it in the first place. :\

[michel555555]

Hydrogen seems an effective alternative but from the little I know if it, it is very hard to extract from the ground and is extremely expensive.

 

hydrogen will never be effective because we currently lack any materials that are actually strong enough to store it in high enough quantities to be used for medium length trips. ever see arny actually drive his hydrogen powered hummer around for anything other then a meeting with enviromentalists?

 

There used to be a car that was made in california that was completly electric and had good enough milage for the average american to drive. But the project was scrapped and replaced with... get this... the hummer.

 

If anyone wants to find out more look up the EV-1 i think it was called or rent or buy the movie "who killed the electric car".

 

And i hate that you used the term deniers in your post. No one thinks that the climate is not shifting. What is doubted is whether or not humans are actually the cause.

 

Yes polluting is bad but have you actually seen any of the stratagies that people are proposing to stop climate change? I'll never forget one "scientist", i use that word with the utmost distaste, wanted to create a massive human made volcanic eruption..

 

And the carbon credit thing that was proposed by al gore i think it was? doesn't do anything to actually help the environment. its just a tax to be sent to all companies who pollute and offers no incentive to actually stop that.

 

How is a carbon tax not an incentive to stop polluting?

 

I'm seeing a trend where climate change skeptics seem to be preoccupied with proposed policy on climate change rather than the science behind it... Either that or picking up on mistakes or infering a global conspiracy from isolated incidents.

 

Its the same theory that raising taxes on smokes or alchohol will stop people from smoking and drinking. Raising taxes on it is a good first step but if there is no method that is cheaper or at least on par with current power generating techniques then all it does is drain money away from buisnesses which will then raise their own products price to compensate and just make everyones life that much more difficult.

 

And the reason why we are so foccused on the policy instead of the actual science is because we have no idea right now what scientific reports are actaully scientific.

 

First off if you look closly at the graphs that are used to show how co2 levels rise when the earth heats up you'll notice something. co2 doesn't actually start to rise until "after" the temperature starts to rise. but if you compare a graph of the suns sun spot activity to the earths temperature you'll see a pattern that is alot closer then the co2 levels with global temperature.

 

Second off alot of the temperature sensors that have been used to moniter the current global temperature have been set up in cities, some even set up right next to heating exhaust vents. And it has been proven that cities and towns are actually warmer then the surrounding environment.

 

Third is that of all the green house gasses co2 makes up less then one percent, man made co2 is even less then that. And we are expected to believe that co2 is the only reason that the climate is changing. In fact the largest green house gass in the atmosphere is actually water vapour.

 

And that's only 3 of the many debates going on as to climate change.

 

and a fun fact is that the head of the IPCC doesn't have any degree whatsoever in climetology or anything els similar. He's a railroad engineer. Yet we are supposed to believe anything he says with out question?

[warri0r45]

Hydrogen seems an effective alternative but from the little I know if it, it is very hard to extract from the ground and is extremely expensive.

 

hydrogen will never be effective because we currently lack any materials that are actually strong enough to store it in high enough quantities to be used for medium length trips. ever see arny actually drive his hydrogen powered hummer around for anything other then a meeting with enviromentalists?

 

There used to be a car that was made in california that was completly electric and had good enough milage for the average american to drive. But the project was scrapped and replaced with... get this... the hummer.

 

If anyone wants to find out more look up the EV-1 i think it was called or rent or buy the movie "who killed the electric car".

 

And i hate that you used the term deniers in your post. No one thinks that the climate is not shifting. What is doubted is whether or not humans are actually the cause.

 

Yes polluting is bad but have you actually seen any of the stratagies that people are proposing to stop climate change? I'll never forget one "scientist", i use that word with the utmost distaste, wanted to create a massive human made volcanic eruption..

 

And the carbon credit thing that was proposed by al gore i think it was? doesn't do anything to actually help the environment. its just a tax to be sent to all companies who pollute and offers no incentive to actually stop that.

 

How is a carbon tax not an incentive to stop polluting?

 

I'm seeing a trend where climate change skeptics seem to be preoccupied with proposed policy on climate change rather than the science behind it... Either that or picking up on mistakes or infering a global conspiracy from isolated incidents.

 

Its the same theory that raising taxes on smokes or alchohol will stop people from smoking and drinking. Raising taxes on it is a good first step but if there is no method that is cheaper or at least on par with current power generating techniques then all it does is drain money away from buisnesses which will then raise their own products price to compensate and just make everyones life that much more difficult.

 

And the reason why we are so foccused on the policy instead of the actual science is because we have no idea right now what scientific reports are actaully scientific.

 

First off if you look closly at the graphs that are used to show how co2 levels rise when the earth heats up you'll notice something. co2 doesn't actually start to rise until "after" the temperature starts to rise. but if you compare a graph of the suns sun spot activity to the earths temperature you'll see a pattern that is alot closer then the co2 levels with global temperature.

 

Second off alot of the temperature sensors that have been used to moniter the current global temperature have been set up in cities, some even set up right next to heating exhaust vents. And it has been proven that cities and towns are actually warmer then the surrounding environment.

 

Third is that of all the green house gasses co2 makes up less then one percent, man made co2 is even less then that. And we are expected to believe that co2 is the only reason that the climate is changing. In fact the largest green house gass in the atmosphere is actually water vapour.

 

And that's only 3 of the many debates going on as to climate change.

 

and a fun fact is that the head of the IPCC doesn't have any degree whatsoever in climetology or anything els similar. He's a railroad engineer. Yet we are supposed to believe anything he says with out question?

 

As for how CO2 increases after temperature, this is because of Milankovitch cycles. First, the cycle brings us out of an ice age and warms the oceans, releasing CO2 which then amplifies the effect of warming. We know that CO2 causes warming - there is no debating that point. As for the urban heat island effect, don't you think thousands of scientists working on the same problem for decades would have figured this out by now? It's obviously not the only source to form the global temperature record. Take satellite data, for example. As for how prevelant CO2 is as a greenhouse gas, your argument doesn't really mean anything. Small changes don't necessarily mean small effects. In fact, scientists have never claimed that it's all about CO2. It's also about methane and deforestation, for example, which both contribute to warming. Water vapour is a constant (and clouds actually cool the planet by reflecting incoming radiation), but the balance of carbon-based pollution in the atmosphere has shifted dramatically since the start of modern industrialisation (current levels of CO2 are about 380ppm where as they were below 300 prior to the industrial revolution for hundreds of thousands of years). It's fairly clear from modelling that we're partly to blame for global warming.

 

As for the head of the IPCC, you're really not helping your cause by making stupid points like this. The head of the IPCC doesn't write the reports - the expert scientists do. You really have to look at the reliability of the source of the information, and the majority of earth scientists with expertise in how the climate works clearly think that we're contributing to recent warming.

 

As for your argument against a carbon tax, it's a fair point. I would have thought, however, in the long-term it's still an incentive (at least in part) for businesses to go green.

[Will H]

Can we please just ditch this whole climate change/global warming we-are-making-earth-explode debate? It is so complex that we're spending far too much money into this with no conclusion on the horizon and not enough at developing Hydrogen fuels and energy sources for when the oil runs out, which is the real problem. It is not helping anyone and will do us no good in the future. We will adapt to climate change, evolution has allowed us to survive thus far, and our technology will see us through. Get on with it.