Cold Spring Linked To Dramatic Sea Ice Loss 422
hrvatska writes "An article at Weather Underground reports that researchers have linked large snowstorms and cold spring weather across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice. It is thought that the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere, which shifts the position of the jet stream, allowing cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. Researchers expect that a warming Arctic ocean will drive more extreme weather in North America and Europe (abstract)."
Global warming (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Interesting)
Creation "science" has an explanation for all the related scientific data these days, and every time e.g. a geologist discovers something new and interesting, hey, no problem, they can change their story and explain that too.
Actual science predicts unusual measurements. Junk science says "hey, no problem, our model can explain that too".
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Science predicts. Definitely. Of course there is that other thing you need called a disprovable hypothesis.
Just a thought. Why didn't any of the AGW models predict the last 5 years?
I mean, if you want to laugh at faith-based belief systems, go ahead, but don't forget to include global warming in the mix. It's facts are as elusive as an creation theory.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly are the margins of error.
Why are you asking us? If you are ignorant of something, that is not our responsibility to correct. You are criticising the margins of error whilst simultaneously claiming to not know what they are. Hardly convincing.
Re:Global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Global warming (Score:4, Interesting)
They did. Over ten years ago there were articles on how global warming could result in northern Europe getting colder.
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You are an idiot. There are lots of branches of science where you can't run 'proper' experiments, only look at what has happened in the past or is happening now. Astronomy, anthropology, any branch of evolutionary theory...
Re:Global warming (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that in the context of climate, one, two, five, and even 10 years out are not exactly the distant future. Climate scientists tell us even a couple degrees makes a big difference, and then have margins of error that big even on very short time scales.
Quite honestly if they can't do better than that it means the models are two immature to be useful for anything other than the development of improved models. Nothing wrong with...you have to start some place. Still if you expect anyone to make more than the feel good "green" policy decision and actually get popular support for actions that will amount to something they need to find better models.
I am not denying things are changing. We can all see that. Looking at the facts we do know like the real magnitude in terms of tons of carbon we are pushing forward in the cycle give us good reason to think outcomes will be different than in the past. You can't ask someone to sacrifice their livelihood or given up their on opportunities to stop something you really don't know the effects of; its not right to so; and in practice they won't listen.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been predicting this for as long as I can remember, and I'm quite old.
North-West Europe is warmer than it ought to be. The reason is warm water currents coming up from the Equator. It's called the Gulf Stream.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Europe#Gulf_Stream [wikipedia.org]
If anything disrupts the Gulf Stream, eg. extra ice melt at the North Pole, then Europe's climate will become what it ought to be for its latitude, ie. much colder..
Science. It works.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Funny)
FTFY :
Science. It works.Bitches
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So uh... when Europe was having warmer weather during Winter and Spring a few years back, everyone [Citation needed] said that Global Warming was the cause [Citation needed] (and that it would never snow in Europe again, [Citation needed] skiing would be extinct, [Citation needed] etc. etc).
Fill in the required information.
So what was happening a few years ago? Global Cooling?
You tell us. What did your model predict? How did these predictions align with actual outcomes?
Why is is that no matter what happens, it is always the effects of Global Warming
You are criticising climate models for being too accurate. What result were you expecting?
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean like the way the AGW people suddenly realized that adding energy to the atmosphere meant more extreme weather, both hotter and colder, after we had some extra-cold winters? I can't say it's not reasonable, but I would have found it much more impressive if any of them had suggested this before it happened, rather than patching their theory to explain something that otherwise didn't fit.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Informative)
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TFA has nothing to do with the Gulf Stream. It's the JET STREAM, a completely different phenomenon.
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Re:Magic Gulf stream (Score:4, Informative)
Here in NW Europe, we're being told we're kept warm in the winter by the "warm waters of the Gulf Stream". Unfortunately, we don't literally bathe in those waters. Heat is transported by SW winds that blow across them, picking up moisture which is then rained out over us and releasing latent heat.
This unseasonably weather is nothing to do with the Gulf stream weakening, it's simply the winds are blowing in the opposite direction (from the cold, dry land). Why they are prolonged is to do with the jet stream position's much further to the south. The mid-latitude jet's a product of the atmosphere's thermal gradient (and some orographically introduced wobbles) and its odd, prolonged position could quite conceivably be to do with Arctic sea ice loss.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see, here [osti.gov]'s an academic paper mentioning cooler winters as an artifact of global warming, dated from before I was born. And I'm more than old enough to be having this debate with you. What exactly wasn't predicted?
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Fine, when was it observed, exactly? I won't beat around the bush. Who raised that objection? When? What evidence do you have that anyone(actually studying the phenomenon) said otherwise? I'm not going to chase goalposts forever. How old does your prediction need to be? Remember that the mid 1970s were the beginning of serious study on AGW, and thus absurd requests are not going to be honored.
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after we had some extra-cold winters
Wait? What? If anything the winter was slightly less cool than the previous 5 years, compared to 3 years ago it was right down balmy.
Re:Global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
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Actual science predicts unusual measurements. Junk science says "hey, no problem, our model can explain that too".
This couldn't be more incorrect. Actual science is a method of observation and has no business in speculation. Either your scientific model describes the behavior of the natural world or you need to change your model to more accurately describe it. It's an ongoing process.
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But you don't know if your model correctly describes, if it can't predict.
Otherwise I can describe to you tomorrow's lottery numbers, the day after tomorrow, and call it science.
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Actual science predicts unusual measurements. Junk science says "hey, no problem, our model can explain that too".
This couldn't be more incorrect. Actual science is a method of observation and has no business in speculation. Either your scientific model describes the behavior of the natural world or you need to change your model to more accurately describe it. It's an ongoing process.
Wrong. The entire point of science is speculation and prediction. We need to know when to plant our crops, how much water and fertilizer to give them. We need to know when a pain can be ignored, and when we need to have an operation. We need to know what drugs to take, and how many nails are needed to build a safe rafter All of science's myriad observations, theories, models, dissertations, and experiments have but one purpose: prediction.
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And in order to "test" a hypothesis, the hypothesis must predict a result. Then you carry out the experiment, and if the predicted result is the same as the expected result, your hypothesis has been tested and has passed the test.
The prediction can be something as simple as:
If I drop this cup, it will fall to the floor.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
This couldn't be more incorrect. Actual science is a method of observation and has no business in speculation. Either your scientific model describes the behavior of the natural world or you need to change your model to more accurately describe it. It's an ongoing process.
Creation "science" describes the behavior of the natural world (at least at the shallow level I can be bothered to look at it). For any set of data, there are an unbounded set of hypotheses that describe that set of data. Merely being consistent with existing measurements is necessary, but not at all sufficient to be science, not storytelling.
Science is about falsifiable predictions. Why is general relativity so certain? Because it predicted all sorts of crazy stuff, such as gravitation lensing, that wasn't known at the time it was published. Why is the Standard Model of particle physics still the standard, despite being so awkward and unloved? Because it keeps making accurate predictions, and more elegant theories don't.
You can create a million different models to explain anything, but that's not very interesting, nor is such a model chosen at random likely to still be correct once more is known. But a model that accurately predicted new data? That's interesting.
There are a million climate models now (well, a lot anyhow) - are any of them interesting? A model that made a specific, falsifiable prediction that none/few of the others did, and turned out to be right, that would be interesting indeed.
Re:Global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
But you're focusing on the non-interesting questions. How much warming would we expect without man? How much longer until glaciation resumes (we are in the Quaternary Ice Age after all)? What normally brings both temps and CO2 levels down every 100k years? Why didn't that happen 10k years ago? How powerful is that mechanism? How significant is man's contribution to normal warming? Does that mean we get warmer? Trigger the cooling mechanism earlier? Delay the return of the glaciers, or hasten that? Heck, do we want it to be warmer, or cooler, since stable is an illusion?
Lots of interesting questions, don't you agree? A good, scientific climate model would have answers to all of those, and be making unexpected predictions. Getting warmer, with the ice melting and resultant changes? That's expected, even without AGW, and not useful to pick a better theory than the rest.
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Publicly: The reason you're freezing your ass off is that unprecedented Arctic ice melting is shifting the cold air further south, all caused by man-made Climate Change.
Privately: This cold weather is a travesty.
Technically (Score:2)
we are still in an ice age. Skiiers, snowboarders and global warming enthusiasts would prefer we remain in the ice age.
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First: "Global warming enthusiast"? Really? Come on.
Second: I don't think you're considering what a neo-tropical environment would actually be like.
Not in the next 500 years or so (Score:2)
So to, I would imagine, the millions of people in low lying coastal areas that will be forced to move as rising sea levels
The seas would actually have to rise significantly first.
To date the actual sea rise has been tiny, and pretty consistent - about six inches over 100 years. So the people living in low coastal areas will have a few hundred years to mull over things before thinking about moving.
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Look. Stop. When you're about to post in a climate thread, ask yourself "Does this debate need another flimsy strawman argument?" If you answered "yes", regardless of what you believe, you are part of the problem, and why there is still "debate".
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If you considered this a "flimsy strawman argument" then your sarcasmometer needs a tune-up.
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I think the sarcasm is an inherent part of what makes it a straw man. You're misrepresenting the reasons the anti-science crowd really latch onto for the defense of their opinions. If you're doing it for humor, it's really weak. Acting like a childish version of those you disagree with is itself really childish. It's what children in elementary school do when they disagree, and it's painfully unfunny for much the same reason.
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Every day, I'm reminded that all my best arguments will be undermined by the audacity and absurdity of those who agree with me.
It's obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
Where I live, it's cold right now. That means that annual global average temperature must be colder than it was last year.
(Of course, this is silly "logic", but that's what most Americans in particular tend to be thinking)
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Where I live, it's cold right now. That means that annual global average temperature must be colder than it was last year.
I look forward to your posting in July berating people who think the hotter temperatures point to obvious effects from global warming.
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(Of course, this is silly "logic", but that's what most Americans in particular tend to be thinking)
How did this become about Americans? I am pretty sure that Global Warming detractors worldwide hold this opinion and I'm pretty sure that proponents of Global Warming from many countries also try to tie ridiculous occurrences that counter their argument in any way possible to the support of Global Warming.
Ultimately we need to discuss the REAL science, Climate Change, and we need informed opinions of educated people supported by facts on both sides to come to a consensus and create some real science wit
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Here's the thing though.... according to the Dept of Education, the average American citizen only has a high school education, and graduated with a 2.8 GPA. It only gets worse if you look at the south, or seniors in the midwest. With only 27% of Americans holding a bachelor or better... I'd say that meme is rapidly becoming spot on.
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FTFY, really getting tired of the hurr durr, muricans r dumb meme.
Americans, compared to the rest of the industrialized world, score worse on standardized tests, are more likely to have demonstrably false beliefs about things that have been scientifically settled for at least a century, and have an all-around terrible educational system. Hence the belief that Americans are dumb.
And I write this as a "murican".
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There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground for some reason.
Because you base your opinion on television and media in general. For fuck's sake, how have you not figured out that people are generally the same, regardless of arbitrary country designation. We're mostly just people trying to get by, worrying about family and the weather and work and the same kinds of things.
The fact that you can't find a middle ground tells me that you've never traveled in the states, and that you're as ignorant as the stereotype you're touting. Educate yourself. Travel. Talk to people.
who cares? (Score:2)
So what if the North Pole is ice free? Ice free poles have been the normal state for our planet for most of the time that primates have been around.
Great to stay credible. Where's my maple sugar? (Score:4, Informative)
Last month the cold weather was because warm air from the south rose over the arctic cold air, thus forcing the colder arctic air down to the southern latitudes. So now it is because last summer there was less ice that froze over long before spring ever came. So how again did the ice covering all the arctic now has caused a colder spring? Did anyone tell these guys that the arctic is still frozen over as we speak? It's not open water. So why is the jet stream being affected? I'm just not clear on all this.
I do know one thing. It's still cold outside and the sow is still on the ground. How is this different from any other Canadian winter or spring for that matter? I'm just lucky enough to remember the weather before all this global warming came along. So how is it different again? How is getting snow in the winter anything unusual? How is snow on the ground in March different? How is maple sugar season changed?
It's a bit cold... (Score:3)
... but it's not unusually cold. This is what the weather is like in the UK. Spring is a fairly unpredictable time of year, in a part of the world where the weather is generally unpredictable.
A couple of years ago we had weeks of -25ÂC weather during the winter, but in the last two it barely got below freezing. This winter, of course, it's going to be back to really cold, or maybe it's going to be back to really warm, or maybe just kind of middling with lots of rain.
SNAFU Jedi Mind Tricks (Score:2)
Fundamentalist Christian: This is not the proof that you're look for...
Weather Scientists: This is not the proof that we're looking for...
Fundamentalist Christian: Move along....
Weather Scientists: You're right this is not enough proof, we'll need to keep on looking...
Arctic and Antarctic winds key. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's with the anti-environment crowd? (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it really bizarre that Slashdot, a website that usually has intelligent discussion, is filled with climate change naysayers.
Is this real life?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record
The 9 warmest years on record happened this century. The Earth is heating up, and rapidly.
Who the fuck are you people?
Re:What's with the anti-environment crowd? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't get it either. And it isn't just ignorance, it's outright stupidity. If you've been informed, and still don't understand, that's stupidity. And it's been explained over and over and over again.
Weather is not climate and global warming is not climate change.
One more time:
1) Radiation in and out are the only methods of changing the average temperature of the earth.
2) The sun emits radiation from the near-infrared range up through UV.
3) When molecules absorb radiation, the reemit it in a random direction.
4) Oxygen absorbs and reemits UV radiation, spitting most of it back out into space.
5) Atmospheric gasses are transparent to visible light, so the visible light radiation is absorbed by the surface of the earth.
6) the surface warms, and reemits lower energy thermal radiation (IR).
7) So-called "greenhouses gasses" like CO2, water vapor, and methane which make up only small parts of the atmosphere are opaque to IR radiation. They absorb this radiation, gain energy, and physically collide with the other gasses in the atmosphere, heating them. Nearly all heating of the earth's atmosphere is from this interaction.
8) The GHG's then emit an IR photon in a random direction, where it is reabsorbed by another molecule and reemitted on and on until it happens to ping pong out into space, radiating heat away from the earth.
9) The higher the concentration of these trace gasses in the atmosphere, the longer it takes for a photon to leave earth, and the warmer the atmosphere is, on average.
10) Man burns lots of long chains of carbohydrates which result in a forced higher concentration of CO2. This happens slowly over time.
11) Plants do not gobble it all up, because plants don't live on CO2 alone. Some of it dissolves in the ocean, causing ocean acidification, which is a completely different problem. Regardless, enough of it stays in the atmosphere.
12) The earth slowly warms because of CO2 forcing. Additionally, higher average temperatures result in more water vapor in the air, and water vapor is an even more effective green house gas than CO2. This leads to the "runaway" greenhouse gas effect.
13) This process that produces higher average global temperatures from man-made activities is called anthropogenic global warming.
14) While the global mean temperature is higher, local average temperatures will certainly vary. Some places will become warmer on average, some cooler, some wetter, some drier, on average, than before.
15) These average changes at different points in the year change the overall climate of those places. This is called climate change. It is a product of global warming.
16) A changed climate results in different weather patterns for an area than the weather patterns that existed before climate change.
17) The weather, as influenced by a changing climate as a result of global warming, is not necessarily warmer in every region of at all times. It is simply different than it was.
This should not be complicated for an educated audience to comprehend.
Gulf Stream has not weakened. (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the most recent SST anomaly map found here [noaa.gov], much of the Gulf Stream is anomalously warmer than expected.
Global Warmin Advocacy is NOT SCIENCE (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously,
weather = super hot = evidence of global warming
weather = freezing cold = evidence of global warming
weather = no snow = evidence of global warming
weather = record snow = evidence of global warming
Global Warming Skeptic exclaims "weather not correlating to global warming" = Global Warming Advocate "weather isn't an indicator of climate change" Weather hot, no snow, etc. And suddenly, Global Warming Advocates use weather as an indication of global warming. Which is it?
Global Warming Advocacy argues ALL changes in weather point to, and are explained by global warming. The only proof we can possibly have against global warming, would be a decade long period in which zero change in average temp, percipitation, ice, or what not occurred. (And frankly, I'd laugh my butt off if that actually happened and we went through 10 years with zero climate change - I'd also say there'd be proof that there is a God and that he has a warped sense of humor.)
But the reality is, that global warming advocates put forth a non-testable hypothesis that can explain everything. And has zero way of being countered per scientific method. And all of this is over a mere 1/2 to 1 1/2 degree variation in temperature. With questionable records at that. Furthermore, we know it was much warmer 150,000 years ago when much of the arctic ice was gone
Just some comments per Wikipedia
"NASA, found that the “rate of warming in the Arctic over the last 20 years is eight times the rate of warming over the last 100 years"
[Okay, a 120 years geologically speaking is a blink in the record.]
"In September 2012, sea ice reached its smallest size ever."
[Really, history records it as having disappeared completely a number of times. Do we mean smallest in modern history? Cause scientific evidence has shown the ice cap has had significant melts several times over the last 2.8 millions years (which is still a short time span geologically speaking)]
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a) You are the tools calling every hurricane, flood, drought or blizzard is PROOF of global warming.
b) You are the tools claiming a 1/2-1 degree, change from 50 years ago is proof the end of the world is coming.
c) Earth's atmosphere has been significantly hotter, by several degrees. Life still flourished.
d) "How many times do you have to be explained that your local weather this week isn't an adequate model for the whole Earth? "
Thousands...until you stop claiming every local weather incident is global war
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Solar storms? ;-)
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Ummm... you can walk from Brooklyn to Queens in the summertime without too much trouble...
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not over the water you can't
Re:how does 2013 compare to the 1980's? (Score:5, Informative)
not over the water you can't
Exactly. There is no water between Brooklyn and Queens (they are both on Long Island). I LOLed.
Re:how does 2013 compare to the 1980's? (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, I can't see many alternative hypotheses here that aren't ignoring reality. All arguments against it seem to be centered around "Nuh UH! It's NOT warming!" but I haven't really heard much talk about how that could not be the case. Carbon absorbs more heat and we're increasing the carbon doesn't seem to be under dispute. Being skeptical is good, but you don't get to reject hypotheses if you have no other way to explain the data.
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All arguments against it seem to be centered around "Nuh UH! It's NOT warming!" but I haven't really heard much talk about how that could not be the case. Carbon absorbs more heat and we're increasing the carbon doesn't seem to be under dispute. Being skeptical is good, but you don't get to reject hypotheses if you have no other way to explain the data.
I find it a bit contradictory to pontificate about "explaining the data" when you don't actually mention any evidence other than rising carbon dioxide levels.
There's also the matter of the degree of effect. There is huge uncertainty in how global temperature changes as a result of changing concentrations of carbon dioxide. It's because there are important dynamics in Earth's climate, such as clouds and "extreme" weather, that can heat or cool in addition to the radiation blocking effects of carbon dioxid
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There's also the matter of the degree of effect. There is huge uncertainty in how global temperature changes as a result of changing concentrations of carbon dioxide. It's because there are important dynamics in Earth's climate, such as clouds and "extreme" weather, that can heat or cool in addition to the radiation blocking effects of carbon dioxide itself.
So.... extra CO2 is OK because the Earth might have some extreme weather up its sleeve to correct for man's emissions?
Question: Isn't "extreme weather" bad/harmful?
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Even a storm that kills no one will typically do tens of thousands of dollars in property damage. So, even if we go by the rather sociopathic notion that thousands of dead is no big deal, it would likely
Re:how does 2013 compare to the 1980's? (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, I'm not saying that Global warming isn't happening, but you're just so off base I've got to correct you.
1. Everything absorbs heat (well almost everything)
2. There is no carbon in the atmosphere. It's Carbon dioxide, a GAS. One's an element, the others not. Christ. CO2 absorbs radiation from the sun and then re-radiates it in all directions. So heat that was at one time moving linearly, is now diffuse and goes in all directions. Radiation that traveled down to the earths surface and was then reflected back my ice, snow, water, or whatever, would normally have an unimpeded path back to space. But when it hits the atmosphere, the atmosphere again diffuses the radiation. Some gasses can absorb more than others. The majority of our atmosphere is made up of mostly Nitrogen followed by oxygen. They do not absorb a lot of radiation. By far, the fast majority of greenhouse effect is generated by water vapor (70% or more) followed by CO2. CO2 accounts for less than 0.04% of the atmosphere.
3. Combustion engines do produce carbon, it's deposited on valves, cylinders, exhaust pipes... lucky for us ITS NOT A GAS.
4. They don't, so lets pretend for a second you know what CO2 is, and understand that burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide and not carbon. That's fine... but the fact of the matter is burning fossil fuels doesn't significantly increase CO2 in the atmosphere. Even diehard global warming supporting scientists wouldn't say that. They'd argue that the modest increase our activity is creating is dangerous. But futhermore, CO2 isn't the biggest problem. Water vapor is. The soot from Coal burning power plants, factories and poorly maintained car exhausts are an even bigger problem. Soot gets into the atmosphere and gives water droplets something to cling to... they increase water vapor in the atmosphere. But scientists don't want the issue to get swept under the rug, after all, CO2 is still a problem if not quite as bad. So lets get of all fossil fuels they say.
5. God damn it learn what carbon is!
6. If there was a God, he'd have stuck you dead by now.
7. What in your entire previous six points had anything to do with logic? You don't even know what CARBON is, how the greenhouse effect works, and you're trying to school someone on their stupidity in regards to both?
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Ultimately we are certainly impacting our climate in ways that it would not be impacted were we either not her
Re:how does 2013 compare to the 1980's? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only problem with this is that the costs are already showing up in peoples insurances.
Ever hear of moral hazard? The US federal government has millions of dollars for disaster relief from floods, but can't find thousands of dollars for disaster prevention. They are effectively paying the world to build in the US's flood-prone areas. Insurance companies won't touch that.
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Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a reason most scientists use the more accurate term climate change.
Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:5, Insightful)
As you might have guessed from my sarcasm, I don't buy at all that the phrase, "climate change" is somehow more accurate than anthropogenic global warming. Climate would change even if nothing particular was going on, just due to orbital dynamics of Earth around the Sun, volcanoes, and the subtle effects of continental drift.
Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, thats about as much intellectual drivel as I would expect out of a political prisoner fresh out of labour-camp.
I see you fit the profile quite nicely. Let's take a look.
Climate Change is an acknowledgment that the Earth has many interconnected systems that can be aversely or even positively affected by changes to the environment.
The word I was criticizing was "accuracy". This bullshit isn't accurate. Anthropogenic global warming is accurate. It describes the key characteristics of the phenomena, namely, that it is man-caused and that it is a global warming.
Also a tacit acknowledgement that once it occurs its nearly impossible to reverse. It just so happens that it also nullifies any unfortunate and misguided pseudo-intellectualism vaulted or supported by the "Global Warming" meme of the 80s.
That's an awful lot of pointless verbiage for a supposedly "tacit" acknowledgement. No, there is no such acknowledgement. "Climate change" simply means a change in climate. All the rest of your claim is completely unfounded and not implied by the label.
the best you can do is question the motives of "scientists" to prove your point
But of course. There are trillions of dollars riding on convincing the public that AGW is dire enough that we need to spend a lot of money. That's many times what you'd need to completely buy the field of climatology.
Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fundamentally, a stable climate is an illusion of the "short now". We think there's such a thing as "normal" temps because we just don't live very long, compared to a planet.
Even on a larger scale, the past 10,000 years have been an amazing anomaly, with a relatively stable climate not seen anywhere else in the data (and it's probably no coincidence that mankind happened to emerge technologically during this rare stable-ish window).
The simple truth about all this Climate Change debate? You don't have an informed opinion either way until you've really looked at the Vostok ice core data [wikipedia.org]. Study the raw data for the past several 100k years yourself - you're intuition is no guide at all for how the climate normally behaves over time.
Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, large-scale climactic changes over tens or hundreds of thousands of years are a red herring when evaluating the impact of hundred-year rapid timescale changes on human societies that need much longer to adapt without horrific violence and misery. We live in very different places/cities from where we did 10,000 or 100,000 years ago --- but pretty much in the same cities we had 100 years ago. Expecting the populations of entire nations and continents to just up-and-move over a few decades because habitable ranges have shifted (collapsing food and water supplies in once-fertile regions) doesn't play out so well in current geopolitics. As soon as you're ready to welcome a billion refugee immigrants, dislocated by famine, war, and poverty, into your own country, we can get complacent about compressing multi-thousand-year climactic cycles into human-scale time intervals.
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Expecting the populations of entire nations and continents to just up-and-move over a few decades because habitable ranges have shifted (collapsing food and water supplies in once-fertile regions) doesn't play out so well in current geopolitics.
Come on. You have evidence of massive and rapid movement of population (the cities you refer to), and yet you still claim it can't happen. Here's how it'll go. The people will move if and when they choose to. And the current geopolitics will adapt to that reality.
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How the heck are cities evidence of rapid population movement? The city centers we currently have are typically stable population centers, with firmly rooted local/national identities, for hundreds of years --- they don't move around overnight, across national borders, whenever the "grass is a little greener" on the opposite side. I'm sure "geopolitics will adapt to that reality," but "geopolitical adaptation" in the modern world typically involves a lot of bullets, landmines, cluster-bombs, machete massacr
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OK, let's look at immigration into the US from 1780 on.
For the first major chunk of your post-1780 period, immigration largely fueled continued Westward expansion --- with the associated continued internment and extermination of natives, squeezed into ever less hospitable reservations with endless promises of "this is the last time we'll break the treaty and make you move elsewhere".
Initial and later immigration waves were also welcomed to provide disposable labor for the mills and mines, under horrific con
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Within the next 100 years, robots will probably do ALL human manual labor. You want to talk about drastic changes to the human condition! The end of manual label is not only much more likely to disrupt, it will disrup
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habitable regions haven't shifted anywhere..
the habitable region extends from the tip of northern continents to the tip of the southern continents - just like a hundred years ago. the difference is that now we don't have famines in some of the less hospitable areas.
actually for the past century or so we've been having problems with people moving for various stupid reasons to less habitable regions(middle east etc). those areas didn't have good water supplies to begin with and have been strip farmed for all
Exactly why I'm a firm believe in AGW (Score:3)
Even on a larger scale, the past 10,000 years have been an amazing anomaly, with a relatively stable climate not seen anywhere else in the data (and it's probably no coincidence that mankind happened to emerge technologically during this rare stable-ish window).
That is why so clearly this anomaly is the result of AGW - Alien Generated Warming. They saw potential in us as a species so they elevated global temperatures for a time, in order for us to reach the point where we are technologically able to conti
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I'm a geologist. Yes, looking on that kind of timescale (or vastly longer) gives you a useful perspective. On the big scale of things, is life on Earth going to end because of anthropogenic climate change? No. It's seen much worse. Is the expected change going to be worse in magnitude or rate than any other climate event in Earth history? Heck, no. Or even as long as humans have been around? Again, no. Humans grew up as a species through multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. We're adapted to them,
Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's a skew factor set that's not a part of the recent rather nicely oscillating glacial cycle or that wasn't a part of the past weather extremes. I'd say normal weathers are those which happen in an environment without the excessive human energy input. The whole planet is affected whether you were or weren't part of it. When the input ceases and the planet response fluctuations ease that's the new normal. Although the coming down period if it happens will probably create a new balance seeking process.
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call it -30 or so Fahrenheit in the winter normal temps then.
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It's also sort of entertaining that when the temperature is different from the average temperature (I prefer that term to "normal"), it's because of global warming or climate change.
No, I'm not a denier. But just because it's been a cold March doesn't mean "climate change." Give me two or three cold Marches in a row, I'll start thinking about it. Otherwise, it's as stupid as the people who, after a big snow storm in DC, said, "Hey, where's that global warming we hear about?"
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too warm people scream global warming
we get a cool March, which is the opposite of warming...yada yada yada
Logic 101: Global warming doesn't exclude local cooling.
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Shifting weather patterns make perfect sense. Us being 6 billion people strong and contributing to it makes sense. What these scientist are saying on a month to month basis doesn't... I believe it's called junk science.
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Re:so WTF are normal temperatures then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Global warming and cooling aren't a thing, climate change, however, is. Hot places get hotter, cold places get colder, and the bits in the middle will get considerably worse than both combined with the colliding weather fronts.
And what in the world gives you the idea that this sort of "climate change" is going on? Increases in greenhouse gases lead to some degree of global warming not hot gets hotter, cold gets colder. WE have enough trouble debating this issue without imaginary theories coming in.
Oddly, this is more stable than the North-east of America, that place gets whacked silly with storms, and it will get considerably worse in the next decade, not even century.
The Gulf of Mexico provides warmth and moisture which is what you need for exciting storms such as the north east region of the US probably has seen for millions of years.
Katrina was a freak, but that last catastrophe of a storm is just progressive weather change now.
That part of the world sees dozens of such cyclones every year. There was nothing odd about Katrina other than a city happened to be in the way.
There is even a chance of another mini ice-age in the north areas again.
Apparently, glacial periods have been the norm for many millions of years. Unless we do something radical, say like dumping massive quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or greatly widening the Bering Strait, we will see another full-blown glacial advance.
Re:Queue stupid comments from team creationism! (Score:5, Insightful)
Science has an amazing way of reinforcing crazy stupid by presenting contradicting, independently verifiable facts
I suppose you mean seemingly contradictory, when viewed on a superficial level without real understanding of the matter?
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You spelled proof wrong consistently.
But at least he's more consistent than the AWG guys!
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I believe the change there is due to the precession of the earth's axis [wikipedia.org].