Crazy Weather

[Wally Balljacker]

I was just taking the dog for a walk, and I noticed a sign that said it was 70 degrees outside. 70 degrees on a January day in Massachusetts is just mind blowing. They say all this warm weather on the east coast is being caused by El Nino, but I think it's obvious Global Warming is also behind it. I've never experienced weather like this before.

[Patrick]

I agree this is odd to say the least. Even if you don't believe in global warming you have to admit this is extremely strange. The problem is you ask people around the world who's to blame and they point their fingers at us while 17 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. Don't forget the old Soviet Bloc. Those countries are still recovering from the environmental damage wreaked by the Soviets. I'm no tree hugger but I do want a decent world for my children and their children as well. I don't have a problem getting away from fossil fuels and telling the oil producing nations to shove those barrels of crude where the sun don't shine. This is a definitely one of the biggest issues of OUR time that we have to deal with. We need to be adults about this and not try to point fingers and politicize this. This is everyone's problem.

[Wally Balljacker]

Yeah. If there is any confusion over whether global warming is real or not, it's because of certain people with political agendas in the US. The scientific consensus is that global warming is indeed real, and humans are causing it. If we don't do something soon, we could be looking at a completely different planet in 20-30 years. One of the scariest consequences of this climate change is that all the ice in the Arctic, Greenland, Alaska, and Antarctica is melting into the sea, and rising the Earth's sea levels. If one of Antarctica's larger ice shelfs were to break off and fall into the sea it could put Manhatten, London, and parts of southern Florida underwater.

Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet



I highly recommend watching the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which came out on DVD a few months back. It's truly a mind blowing film that everyone needs to see.

http://www.amazon.com/Inconvenient-Trut ... UTF8&s=dvd

[snarkout]

We got over 2 feet of snow in between the 25th at the 30th. No mail, no ups, no fedex, and no garbage collection. We haven't had our garbage picked up for over 3 weeks at this point since there was another "snow storm" before xmas too, though it was more on the order of 6-12 inches. They also don't do much in the way of plowing around here - we were litterally snowed in for 3 days, which didn't make much difference since any local stores were closed. I pretty much hate New Mexico at this point.

[allix]

Speaking of global warming, over here in england , there has been much talk by even mps to the point of critizing airlines. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6236089.stm

Even the pm seems to be concerned(publicity stunt to be honest) and is actually believing(following the party line ... ) what scientist have been saying for a long time. of course brandson is starting a project to bring CO2 emissions down, its ironic owning a airline to do such things, but where there is money that guy will go.

The last couple of years we have had much warmer and colder summers.. something must be up to no good..

[Vogateer]

Yeah. If there is any confusion over whether global warming is real or not, it's because of certain people with political agendas in the US. The scientific consensus is that global warming is indeed real, and humans are causing it.

Nobody really debates global warming, it's whether or not humans are causing it that is up for debate. It probably has something to do with majoring in biochem, but I have a hard time grouping climatology into the same field as something like chemistry or physics, where you have control experiments and vicious critiques of your methods. In climatology, there's no such thing as a control experiment. You can't control anything, you can only observe. That already makes it very different and excludes the famous scientific method from being practiced.

As it is, you have to rely strongly on computer models, which are obviously programmed with our own expectations about how things work. The problem with this is that how many times have you read a story that basically involves a scientist expecting one thing from his experiment, only to find something completely different? The whole point of science is that you're supposed to be able to prove that some of our ideas are wrong, not to prop up our own ideas with computer models. It also doesn't help that I remember reading an article in grade school about how a lot of scientists thought we might be entering the next ice age, and that was only a little over 20 years ago.

Basically, I haven't a clue what sort of impact we have on the weather, and if we do impact the weather, which is certainly possible, we can't possibly know what the overall effects that impact might have. I also worry about our natural tendencies to be almost egomaniacal in judging how important we are to this planet and our surroundings. People often say we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world. Not true. We could kill off ourselves, yes, but life on this planet would still go on.

[Wally Balljacker]

Well, we do have enough nukes to pretty much eliminate all life on Earth. In the event of a nuclear winter, all the smoke and ash would be sent into the Earth's stratosphere and block out the sun for several years.

[Vogateer]

Everything I've read suggests that life would still go on even if we set off every nuke on earth. Cockroaches don't need light, and seeds and microorganisms can go dormant and come back to life decades later, so blocking out the sun would destroy most vegetation for a while, and any complex animal would be gone, but life would still go on.

I remember reading a sociology textbook a friend of mine had. One of the articles had as it's sources an interview in a newspaper and a number pulled out of thin air by a lawyer, who even said he had nothing to back up his ideas. The rest was pure conjecture. This in a college textbook claiming that sociology is a science just like physics. Infuriating to see such drivel passing itself off as science. Climatology is in no way as bad as that, I mean, at least they have peer review, but I'm always wary of people claiming the label science, particularly when— as in that sociology article—the label is used to give credence to their ideas.

Climatology as least has physical data on which to draw conclusions, but there are just an incredible amount of variables. How do you pluck CO2 out from the rest of them, given that you even understand what all the variables are. Meteorology probably has the tougher job, but with everything they know, they still make mistakes. Now it could certainly be that climatologists have a good grasp on the variables and how to measure them despite not being able to control other variables. I really haven't read enough, though I instinctively try to avoid hubris, and there's certainly a touch of hubris in thinking we have the whole climate thing figured out. Of course, we don't have to have it all figured out for the information to be useful, but I can't help but be skeptical until I've had a long time to pore over research articles and weigh their merits and idea.

Back to the topic of free software, in my search for more info, I found this:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... /12/about/

They made their logo with the Gimp! They're obviously right about what software to use!

[allix]

As it is, you have to rely strongly on computer models, which are obviously programmed with our own expectations about how things work. The problem with this is that how many times have you read a story that basically involves a scientist expecting one thing from his experiment, only to find something completely different? The whole point of science is that you're supposed to be able to prove that some of our ideas are wrong, not to prop up our own ideas with computer models. It also doesn't help that I remember reading an article in grade school about how a lot of scientists thought we might be entering the next ice age, and that was only a little over 20 years ago.

I agree scaremongering does not and should not have a place in science, its meant to be an experimental world, where uknown ideas are tried out in order to evaluate (not sure if thats a too strong word) what happens. I see very little reason apart from elementary learning to research something that the end goal is known by the reasearcher. Research should be full of surprise and uncertainty (ok some idea of what is going to perhaps happen should be fore seen). Research should not be about finding the end goal more about learning the in between.

Thats wraps open source software nicely in that alot of projects are really really experimental, alot just cannot predict whats going to happen with there software.
Its has been an exciting world in open source software.

often say we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world. Not true. We could kill off ourselves, yes, but life on this planet would still go on.

Definately, after all dinosaurs became extinct because they could not survive the climate change, maybe the weather is a natural progression and that some other life is meant to take over when humans are extinct.

[greggh]

The problem is you ask people around the world who's to blame and they point their fingers at us while 17 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. Don't forget the old Soviet Bloc.

I don't think that's the problem. On a per capita basis the U.S. by far pumps the most CO2 into the atmosphere. In a few more decades that will no longer be the case, but it will be hard for the U.S. and other wealthy western nations to then say to China, India, and other growing industrialized nations, "You all need to stop pumping out the CO2", after we raped the atmosphere and got ours. The U.S. isn't even a signer to Kyoto.

[Brian]

I remember a January day back in '90 or '91 when I was living in Pittsburgh and if it didn't hit 70 is was close; 67 or 68 at least. No one said "global warming" then. From my 30+ years of following the weather I have seen snowstorms followed by days in the 60's (Dec. '84 or '85 IIRC) here in the LV and a string of days in late May, as in the week before Memorial Day ('05) where temperatures never got out of the 50's. I've seen days in July that have barely gotten into the 60's ('96 or '97); we went to a ballgame and it was so cold my wife bought hot chocolate. I remember a Father's Day not too long ago ('00 or '01) where it was 59 degrees. Conversely, remember the Chicago heat wave of 1995 that killed 600 people? No one blamed global warming for that. Plus, what about the triple punch of storms that just hit Colorado and the plains? Is that global warming too?

I am a weather buff and nothing I see surprises me. Sixties in Jan or sixties in July; I've seen both before. Snow in October or snow in April; yup; seen that too. Blizzards, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold spells, and hurricanes have all been part of the lexicon since man first started to observe weather.

Do some general research and you'll find that the earth has emerged from a 30 year cooling cycle (approx. 1950-1980). So is it "global warming" or is it just a climactic change that's balancing out a cooling period?

Personally, I think it's arrogant to think that man can affect the earth's climate; or at least to the extent some claim we are. If you ever doubt the power of Mother Nature, buy a house. It's amazing how much damage a little water can do from a heavy storm. A few gusts of wind can ruin your day, too.

[Wally Balljacker]

I remember a January day back in '90 or '91 when I was living in Pittsburgh and if it didn't hit 70 is was close; 67 or 68 at least. No one said "global warming" then. From my 30+ years of following the weather I have seen snowstorms followed by days in the 60's (Dec. '84 or '85 IIRC) here in the LV and a string of days in late May, as in the week before Memorial Day ('05) where temperatures never got out of the 50's. I've seen days in July that have barely gotten into the 60's ('96 or '97); we went to a ballgame and it was so cold my wife bought hot chocolate. I remember a Father's Day not too long ago ('00 or '01) where it was 59 degrees. Conversely, remember the Chicago heat wave of 1995 that killed 600 people? No one blamed global warming for that. Plus, what about the triple punch of storms that just hit Colorado and the plains? Is that global warming too?

I am a weather buff and nothing I see surprises me. Sixties in Jan or sixties in July; I've seen both before. Snow in October or snow in April; yup; seen that too. Blizzards, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold spells, and hurricanes have all been part of the lexicon since man first started to observe weather.

Do some general research and you'll find that the earth has emerged from a 30 year cooling cycle (approx. 1950-1980). So is it "global warming" or is it just a climactic change that's balancing out a cooling period?

Personally, I think it's arrogant to think that man can affect the earth's climate; or at least to the extent some claim we are. If you ever doubt the power of Mother Nature, buy a house. It's amazing how much damage a little water can do from a heavy storm. A few gusts of wind can ruin your day, too.

Ok, first of all, 18 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last 20 years, and 2005 was the hottest of them all, although it may have been eclipsed by 2006. Yes the Earth goes through cooling and warming periods, but ever since the second industrial revolution in the early 1900's, global temperatures have continued to increase.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/sc ... p2005.html

[Brian]

Chart (a) looks pretty fancy and all but the entire variance is less than one degree.

Plus, why compare 1961-1990 to every thing else? As I alluded to before, the earth was in a cooling cycle during that time. So, if that's the cooler period, then it's easy to make the other periods look warmer. Compare the last 18 years to the other 122 and it will look like we just emerged from an Ice Age. But, "earth is getting warmer, it's our fault" sells more than "earth emerges from 200 year cooling cycle."

My two issues are 1) the media acts like it's never hit 70 in a major NE US city in January before (and we'll only hear the crickets chirping when we see another May like Boston had a year or two ago; one of the coldest on record, IIRC) and 2) it's our fault.

Yes, it's probably getting warmer but the earth is dynamic. It seems the term 'climate' has been replaced by 'global warming.'

We're getting too far off-topic.

[allix]

So is it "global warming" or is it just a climactic change that's balancing out a cooling period?

Personally, I think it's arrogant to think that man can affect the earth's climate; or at least to the extent some claim we are. If you ever doubt the power of Mother Nature, buy a house. It's amazing how much damage a little water can do from a heavy storm. A few gusts of wind can ruin your day, too.

I see what you mean, what large corporations have done to this planet is not helping but i cannot believe that, thats all their is to blame. Are the resources that create all the crap that goes into the atmoshere man made or natural?

If its man made then its damn right the fault of the corparations
if not then we should reconsider global warming..

Its crazy how only in the last couple of centuries man can destroy the world,

We're getting too far off-topic.

na, its good to get this conversation going .....

[Vogateer]

I'm always amazed at what happens on the earth, and how life finds a way. Back when algae and plants were the main lifeforms of the day, the oxygen level in the atmosphere was dangerously high, since oxygen is a highly toxic mutagenic gas, a poison due to its free radicals. Luckily breathing animals came into the world, and started turning that O2 into CO2.

I was reading this page here, too:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFoss ... imate.html

Has a long term history of the temperature of the planet. Interesting stuff.

I've yet to find a site that seems to offer any balance. The issue seems to be so polarizing that it's hard to find a site that either believes in human-caused global warming and admits that there is at least one issue up for debate, or believes in the opposite but admits the other side has a good case as well. With something this complex, there must be many things we're not sure about, yet most sites seem to act like it's already a given. Maybe I've just missed it so far. The realclimate.org website had some good arguments, but was just as one-sided as the rest judging by all the articles I read. Has anyone found a site that seems to be even vaguely impartial?