HOT, HOT, HEAT: June 2010 was the 304th month in a row with higher than average temperatures--and could contribute to making 2010 the hottest year on record.
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Hot summers (and balmier winters) may simply be the new normal, thanks to carbon dioxide lingering in the atmosphere for centuries.
This trend reaches back further than a couple of years. There have been exactly zero months, since February 1985, with average temperatures below those for the entire 20th century. (And those numbers are not as dramatic as they could be, because the last 15 years of the 20th century included in this period raised its average temperature, thereby lessening the century-long heat differential.) That streak—304 months and counting—was certainly not broken in June 2010, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last month saw average global surface temperatures 0.68 degree Celsius warmer than the 20th-century average of 15.5 degrees C for June—making it the warmest June at ground level since record-keeping began in 1880.
Not only that, June continued another streak—this year, it was the fourth warmest month on record in a row globally, with average combined land and sea surface temperatures for the period at 16.2 degrees C. The high heat in much of Asia and Europe as well as North and South America more than counterbalanced some local cooling in southern China, Scandinavia and the northwestern U.S.—putting 2010 on track to surpass 2005 as the warmest year on record. Even in the higher reaches of the atmosphere—where cooling of the upper levels generally continues thanks to climate change below—June was the second warmest month since satellite record-keeping began in 1978, trailing only 1998.
"Warmer than average global temperatures have become the new normal," says Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which tracks these numbers. "The global temperature has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit [0.7 degree C] since 1900 and the rate of warming since the late 1970s has been about three times greater than the century-scale trend."
So what does the near future hold in terms of heat waves and record-breaking highs? Depending on how quickly La Niña conditions strengthen in the Pacific Ocean (and a host of other factors), this year could surpass previous records or at least take its place as one of the warmer years on record.
The short-term is fairly clear to climatologist James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "A new record global temperature, for the period with instrumental measurements, should be set within the next few months," he wrote in an unpublished paper in March.
But record global temperature for the calendar year might not occur if El Niño conditions deteriorate rapidly by mid-2010 into La Niña conditions, Hansen added.
That is exactly what is happening right now, according to NOAA. Sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean—which play a key role in determining global temperatures—continued to decline in June, transforming from the heated condition known as El Niño to the cooler condition known as La Niña. A similar change in 2007 ended that year's chance to surpass 2005 as the warmest year on record. "La Niña typically contributes to a lower global average temperature than do neutral or El Niño conditions," Lawrimore explains. "The forecasted development of La Niña has the potential to bring the annual 2010 global average temperature below a record for the year as a whole."
Nevertheless, record highs are already being recorded across the globe: Pakistan set Asia's record for highest temperature on record, notching up 53.5 degrees C on May 26—one of nine countries to set high heat records so far this year. There are now roughly twice as many days with record highs than days with record lows, according to research from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. And warmer than usual temperatures in the ocean have prompted coral bleaching in the Indian Ocean and offshore of Southeast Asia; NOAA also warns there is "high potential" for such bleaching to develop in the Caribbean this summer.
All this heat comes at a time when the sun—despite a recent uptick in solar storm activity, much of it associated with sunspots, since late 2008—continues to pump out slightly less energy. This diminished solar radiation should be promoting a slight cooling but is apparently outweighed by the ongoing accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, as scientists have predicted for more than a century. Of course year to year variations in weather cannot be conclusively tied to climate change, which is best measured by a multiyear trend, such as the long-term trend of warming into which this year fits—2000 to 2010 is already the warmest decade since records have been kept and the 10 warmest average annual surface temperatures have all occurred in the past 15 years.
Precipitation patterns are changing as well—southern regions in China, Europe and India, along with the U.S. Midwest and Northwest all saw more rainfall than usual in June. Similar factors resulted in Nashville being drowned this spring, among other impacts. Meanwhile, drought afflicted Australia, eastern Asia, northern India and northeastern South America. The U.K. is experiencing the lowest rainfall since 1929.
Regardless, the long-term trend is clearly continued warming, which is "very likely" (with more than 90 percent certainty) caused by greenhouse gases emitted in the course of human activity, according to climate scientists. And climate model research from Stanford University set to be published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that extended heat waves are likely to become more commonplace in the U.S. by 2040—and predicts hotter and drier seasons over the next decade.
"Frankly, I was expecting that we'd see large temperature increases later this century with higher greenhouse gas levels and global warming," Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, who headed up the research, said in a prepared statement. "I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades."
"Heat waves are expected to become more frequent and intense in the 21st century," NOAA's Lawrimore adds. "Today's rare heat waves will likely become the typical weather conditions by the last half of the century."
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65 Comments
Add CommentI think eventually, people will understand that the earth will warm the way it has been when adding CO2 to the atmosphere. The problem I think, is that many people see .68 C and they think it isn't a big deal. Most people don't understand how many ecosystems work, what can change them, and how they interact with our own. Getting that awareness out I believe has far more success then to keep on telling the frog in the pot that it is getting warmer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting assumption. Even though the solar radiation is apparently reduced, the global temperature is increased because of carbon dioxide increasing. Can someone explain then why the other planets' temperatures are also increasing?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCite your evidence. I find it difficult to believe we've been taking records of the other planets' temperatures since 1880.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe solution to all this is just to wait. In a few more years, the average will be calculated by all the warm years, and then we won't have warmer-than-average years. See? Statistically, this should solve itself in about 10 years.
Wow Really? like having the average since 1880 predicts future temperatures of a planet that is billions of years old. Comparison to other planets is evidence that our impact on the planet is not as great as some would wish it was. I need not site references. If you truly want to be objective and unbiased, you can easily find such info on the web.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I need not site references. If you truly want to be objective and unbiased, you can easily find such info on the web."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I don't know what I'm talking about."
Here, I fixed that last line for you.
See for yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.whitemagicsoftware.com/software/climate/
@cpfeiffer3: " Can someone explain then why the other planets' temperatures are also increasing?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure: it's not true.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system.htm
" like having the average since 1880 predicts future temperatures of a planet that is billions of years old."
The problem with this argument is it assumes we don't have fairly accurate measurements of what climate's been like in the past....which we do. Through various methods (such as tree ring proxy data, ice bores, etc) we have a really good model of what the climate's been like on the Earth for it's history. Specifically, the Earth does go through climate cycles known as Milankovitch cycles in which temp goes up and down. The significant part is that we're on the downward trend of one, but temp's going up, up, up...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
"I need not site references."
Actually, you do. And, not just denier websites, but actual scientific references documenting the evidence for your case. If you follow the links above, you'll find 8-10 different papers that back up what I say. Without it, what you have to say is meaningless. Had you bothered to actually read the scientific literature, you would've known your "argument" was completely made up and you're just parroting something said by someone else...most likely an oil company shill.
" our impact on the planet is not as great as some would wish it was. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-are you kidding?
-You don't think the following is evidence enough of mans impact on the planet:
Gulf oil spill, china oil spill, the dark side of the planet is now brite from mans lights, CO2 is double what it was 100 years ago, look at a google map of Minnesota (the entire state is checkerboarded with corn fields), New York city (which was once beautiful forest), palm beach (which was once a paradise, is now desert).
-your completely insane if you think man cannot affect his environment... this is the one quality that differentiates us from animals, the ability to control our environment via complex thought.
I love it when the sane and scientific people get together who don't just parrot what they've heard! :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it also depresses me to think that the majority of the public is so easily led by their "leaders" that they would believe stupid nonsense such as "we're not significantly affecting our environment". It amazes me that people think that the global warming crisis is just a creation of corporations to get us to spend money... even if that WERE true... which sounds better:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-Thousands of new and local green companies hosting thousands of new jobs aimed at cleaning up and maintaining our planet while living in harmony
-Bigger richer oil companies made possible by lessening regulations so that spills aren't such a big deal while maintaining a carbon-based energy system pumping out more and more CO2 into the atmosphere until all the oil is gone, the entire ocean looks like one big oil slick, and global AVERAGE temperatures have gone up 10 degrees... while continuing to wage wars against extremist countries that also happen to be paid by us for their oil
Hmmm... which scenario would I rather send my money to?
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/nasa-study-shows-sun-responsible-for-planet-warming/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
http://seoblackhat.com/2007/03/04/global-warming-on-mars-pluto-triton-and-jupiter/
Need more references? or will you just deny these and any other ones I come up with?
Nostradamus predicted nothing!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that the factor that is most obstructing the general public's acceptance of global warming as something that is real, important, and, at the VERY least, partially influenced by humanity's actions has been how groups of lawyers and politicians have hijacked this problem to try and gain from it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout 50 million years ago something drastic happened here on Earth that wiped out the Dinosaur and most biological life form. That's well before man started burning fossil fuel, which that epoch in time eventually produced, to cook, light, and power the human race. Indirectly their CO2 is now killing us? Maybe what we are experiencing is Earth's normal Geologic forces and there's little if anything man can do to change natural evolution. Maybe if we study and analyze changes our Earth has gone through in past Geologic time to develop a better understanding of what might lie ahead then look at ways to cope with said change rather than try to alter something we have little or no control over, we will be better prepared for what is to come. The dinosaurs disappeared but man, with our innate ability to improvise and develop fixes can surly find ways to cope if we know what's coming. The last North American ice cap reached as far South as St. Louis. If that were to happen again maybe Yankees would learn to live like Eskimos or move South.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a thought but my associates and I, using existing technology with a few innovations, can take Sea Water which is loaded with the 52 nutrients we need to grow vegetables and fruit hydroponically, after we remove the NaCl (Salt), to feed large numbers of people in major population centers anywhere in the world, year round. We can also generate clean electricity through bio-mass conversion using binary GenSets to provide clean renewable energy. Throw in some R60 housing that will with stand tornados and you have a pretty sustainable Micro Community scalable to meet most needs we humans have become accustom to. There are and will be many more ways to adapt to changing environments once we realize we are not in control.
Those who scoff at global warming and deny man's role in it are today's equivalent of the Flat Earth Society.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe larger problem, of course, is getting humans to do something about it....and this is where I'm very skeptical. So get used to rising temperatures and rising sea levels. Nothing will be done about it.
noretreat says, "The larger problem, of course, is getting humans to do something about it..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this***********
Absolutely....especially as everything has become so politically polarized, with so much anti-science propaganda along with political rhetoric promoting dis-information.
I'm also skeptical about anything being done about the ever-warming planet, until we've already passed the tipping point.
pfeiffer3....did you actually read any of the links you posted....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming_2.html
"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era,"
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
"While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth,
and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists
agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global
temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species."
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/nasa-study-shows-sun-responsible-for-planet-warming/
political commentary...no science...
point out any if you can....
http://seoblackhat.com/2007/03/04/global-warming-on-mars-pluto-triton-and-jupiter/
David Tholen, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii who measured the size of Pluto in the late 1980s
using a series of occultations and eclipses involving Pluto's satellite, noted that even though Pluto was
closest to the sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later shouldn't be unexpected. "It takes time for
materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m.
rather than local noon, when sunlight is the most intense," Tholen said. Because Pluto's year is equal to
about 250 Earth years, 13 years after Pluto's closest approach to the Sun is like 1:15 p.m. on Earth.
"This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years," Tholen estimated.
How comes yer sayen thats the earths gone and done warmin when I stills have ice in my ice box?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAl Gore never tells anyone why is that?
So we is never goen to believe his witness.
It's pure socializ.
If we don't pump this oil it's gonna go bad. So we have to use it or else we will be wasting a gift from God the creator who gave us this oil to burn and he don't make bad stuff so he gave us enough to last until the Obama End Times.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides, Al Gore is accused of exposing his we-we to women so that proves global warming can't be true to us christians.
Why we keep arguing? All of us will just gain from going with renewable source (especially Solar, geothermal etc) and in this process CO2 level may come down or not?, we will come to know in the near future. Offcourse the vested interst of oil lobbists will be harmed. Also if we reduce our needs in general then also CO2 level will come down, but this will impact jobs, therefore we cannot gain without sacrificing? So this is a complex issue and our society is predominately a selfish one but will get better only when havoc from climate change will start affecting one and all? Wakeup call is needed. We only stop smoking when we get some major illness, so basically preventative approach to life is abscent from our society in general. Please also note insurance premiums will definetly rise due to climate change. We must take a unselfish balanced approach to be living in harmony with nature. This is easy to say but difficult to implement, but we are humans and CAN DO EVERYTHING (really), then please kindly improve the situation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGary Noel, I wish people we get that idea through their heads. It bothers me how much antagonism there is between people who believe warming is a complete hoax and people who believe warming is going to destroy the planet. I feel like we've been pitted against each other so that this can be remain to be the decisive issue it is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf people just sat down and decided to make global pollution--the destruction of our immediate environment and ecosystems--the object of their collective ire, some real good could get done. Pollution's bad for people; it's rampant in certain areas and has resulted in respiratory problems, increased cancer rates, and all sorts of really bad stuff. It seems to me that we should want to do something about an action which is harming us and our neighbors.
But cooperating is probably too crazy of an idea for most folks.
Two Things we can see common in deniers of GW,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.)They are so arrogant that they always feel they are superior to all other beings on Earth.
2.)They are politically biased.
Its much like Avatar movie on Earth. Funniest things of all is they argue man cannot change the environment. But as a matter of fact, we changed everything, destroying forest, bringing extinction for many species, hunting whales even after knowing that there are only few, waging wars, etc. Other organisms can at the most affect their locality. A good analogy is a lion, even if it finds some 100 deers, it will only hunt down only 1 and eat it whereas what we do is hunt 1 down, eat it then will think of killing them all and selling it.
Humans are the most inhumane being in the world....
"Need more references? or will you just deny these and any other ones I come up with? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAwww, how cute. You're going to try and append your title to me. That's adorable. Let's go over the difference between a denier and an actual skeptic. A denier just says "that's not true!" A skeptic looks at the facts presented, puts them into context with other collected data and makes an informed decision. You need to perform a critical analysis of what you're reading. You can't just read it and regurgitate as you've done here. But, in the interest of fostering the growth of critical thinking skills, I shall teach you where your thinking is flawed.
Let's take 'em one at at time, shall we?
>> http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html
If you'll read the first article I posted for you, there were five (5) studies cited, did you read any of them? I see no citations in this article. I see a single scientist quoted in the beginning who is attempting to pin the issue on the Sun. Actually, I lie, there is a social anthropologist quoted in there stating things about rising temps on the other planets. He also does not cite is references. Now, I know that social anthropologists are authorities on the planets in our Solar System, but he still needs to cite references.
This is known as an "appeal to authority" logical fallacy. To quote the Simpsons "just listen to this scienctician!" Here's some reference material for you to avoid such a fallacy in the future:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
As stated before, citations are critical. For example, to follow up the previous link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
There are thirteen (13) papers cited all of which limit the contribution of the Sun to climate change as less than 30%. Believe it or not...actual scientists ARE aware that the Sun is hot and has an effect on our temperature. They've conducted research SPECIFICALLY to eliminate it as a variable. A single scientist who feels that by stating "I don't think the data matches observed conditions" he can undermine dozens of papers showing evidence that it does isn't deserving of the title.
>> http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/nasa-study-shows-sun-responsible-for-planet-warming/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, you're doing better on this one. You've actually got a source who claims to cite a paper. Good for you! You're learning! The problem here, though, is what's called "second source bias". You're reading an opinion piece from someone who apparently never read the actual paper. How can we tell? Well, let's look at the first paragraph:
"From DailyTech, we have still more evidence that any warming occurring on planet earth is coming from natural sources and is cyclic in nature–NOT from the evil capitalism that Al Gore, the UN politicians at the IPCC and other socialists love to blame."
Oops, Al Gore better watch out...let me clue you in on one simple test to determine if someone's handing you a pile of pseudoscience. If they mention "Al Gore", they're not telling you the truth. You'll notice the actual scientific community actually doesn't use Al Gore as a source. He plays no part in climate change other than being a mouthpiece. Al Gore was 8 when climate change was first measured. This isn't a new trend in scientific study.
BTW, no one blames "capitalism". In fact, it's the other side that's anti-capitalism. Capitalism has as one of its facets the concept that when the market changes, you have to do what it wants. The market has changed, but the major players are fighting tooth and nail to keep going the way things have been. They HATE free markets because were the market actually free, they would be out of business. Putting aside climate change, renewable energy means cheaper and better no matter how you slice it. WE would like to see new industry take root. WE would like to see new players get started. WE would like to provide products and services that provide long-term benefit to the consumers. But, the fear-mongering from the other side is drowning that out. They've got you convinced that if you pay attention to the actual science, you'll be living in feudal America in no time at all, destitute and farming mud.
Anyway, sounds incriminating, right? Well, before we move on, let's click the link to DailyTech to see what they actually did say. Oops, they're another step removed from the source. Let's follow through to THEIR source...another news article. Great...well, this one's interesting:
"Over the past century, Earth's average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit). Solar heating accounts for about 0.15 C, or 25 percent, of this change, according to computer modeling results published by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies researcher David Rind in 2004. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this""Greenhouse gases block about 40 percent of outgoing thermal radiation that emanates from Earth," Woods said. The resulting imbalance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing thermal radiation will likely cause Earth to heat up over the next century, accelerating the melting polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise and increasing the probability of more violent global weather patterns."
Well, wait...that doesn't jibe with the link you posted at all! It's almost like they told you the EXACT OPPOSITE of what was actually said. Why would they do that? I'll tell you why: greedy fear mongering. The more they keep you in fear of a free market, the longer they can keep raking in your money.
>> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
This is the same Russian scientist from your first link. Appeal to authority, remember? Repeating it doesn't make it more true.
>> http://seoblackhat.com/2007/03/04/global-warming-on-mars-pluto-triton-and-jupiter/
Good, again he cites papers. Unfortunately, he again gets them completely opposite what they actually say. The Pluto article:
"The major way they could be connected is if the warming was caused by a large increase in sunlight. But the solar constant--the amount of sunlight received each second--is carefully monitored by spacecraft, and we know the sun's output is much too steady to be changing the temperature of Pluto."
Seriously, I can't even go on! You really need to come up with SOMETHING that backs your claims somewhere...at the very least you should actually READ what you're posting first. Tell you what, I realize all of this critical thinking stuff is new to you. Take the weekend, do some more (GOOD) research and come back on Monday to give us a report on what you found.
Though not an expert my any means, I am surprised to see so seldom any mention of future methods to scub CO2 from the atmosphere. Is this no longer even considered being worthy of further study? It seems that aside from producing cleaner tech, producing methods to pull CO2 from the air would be a second option; an option I believe is far safer than the more often mentioned "geo-engineering" methods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisansutherland....we know how to remove co2 from the atmosphere...any of the factories that produce dry ice do it...the problem is what do you do with the result...also it is far cheaper to scrub the co2 producing power plants at the source as oppose to trying to remove it from the open air...again what do you do with the results....ps agree with you on the geo-engineering stuff...total unknowns....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswe need to keep moving toward renewables...it will take years and years to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.....
@ansutherland: My opinion is this has been a well-studied line of science for over 60 years now, and we're still trying to "convince" the great unwashed of the basics. Until that happens, proactive or reactive plans barely can be discussed. It would be a great conversation to have, but right now it's probably most important to just stop putting crap up there to begin with or at least slow it down. I don't disagree on the importance, I just think it's a battle we can't even begin to discuss until we can quite the oil company backed dissenters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout 50 million years ago something drastic happened here on Earth that wiped out the Dinosaur and most biological life form. That's well before man started burning fossil fuel, which that epoch in time eventually produced, to cook, light, and power the human race. Indirectly their CO2 is now killing us? Maybe what we are experiencing is Earth's normal Geologic forces and there's little if anything man can do to change natural evolution. Maybe if we study and analyze changes our Earth has gone through in past Geologic time to develop a better understanding of what might lie ahead then look at ways to cope with said change rather than try to alter something we have little or no control over, we will be better prepared for what is to come. The dinosaurs disappeared but man, with our innate ability to improvise and develop fixes can surly find ways to cope if we know what's coming. The last North American ice cap reached as far South as St. Louis. If that were to happen again maybe Yankees would learn to live like Eskimos or move South.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a thought. My associates and I, using existing technology with a few innovations, can take Sea Water which is loaded with the 52 nutrients we need to grow vegetables and fruit hydroponically, after we remove the NaCl (Salt), to feed large numbers of people in major population centers anywhere in the world, year round. We can also generate clean electricity through bio-mass conversion using binary GenSets to provide clean renewable energy. Any CO2 created in this process will be piped back to our growing ranges(Green Houses) where it will be absorbed by our vegetable plants. Throw in some R60 housing that will with stand tornados and you have a pretty sustainable Micro Community scalable to meet most needs we humans have become accustom to. There are and will be many more ways to adapt to changing environments once we realize we are not in control.
Funny how everyone talks like an expert about global warming, when, at the end of the day the story is just ridiculous once again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember the hole in the ozone layer in the 90s?
Remember acid rains in the 80s?
Remember the rainforest disappearing fast in the 80s?
Remember the swine flu epidemic supposed to kill 10mio people on the globe ?
None of these stories made any sense while at the end of the day hundreds of "scientists" were giving statements saying that the earth was coming to an end.
FACT: there are more forest now than ever in most countries including France and most of Europe
FACT: no-one talks about the ozone layer and how we supposedly should stop using deodorant sprays to stop the hole from growing
FACT: the rainforest is still as large as it ever was because guess what, TREES GROW BACK !
Now before trying to convince any reaonsable guy that 120 years of data that the earth temperatures is rising fast please hold on. I'd like to see the accuracy of "Global Temperatures" taken in 1880 to start with...
Even if the temperatures are rising it means absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Axel
Most people ARE understanding that the climate is warmer and warmer. But unlike the alarmists many people don�t put this in any connection to CO2 - a connection which is the question to be discussed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEarth has become warmer and warmer for more than 400 years so it should not be a suprise that the global climate is warmest now. This is not the same that we are not affecting everything with pollutions, of course we are.
When this is a "suprise" to the climate community it once again points out the fact that this science does not work as it pretends to. There are not "suprises" every now and then to any given science. Climate science produces more "suprises" than would it betolerable for any dancer that makes rain fall.
Yes. Actually I can. The explanatioin is much simplier than people want to think about - we just don´t know why!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNeither the postulate of CO2 or sun making climate warmer can not be proved by a these theories as long as the postulate itself is used as evidence. (a postulate cannot prove itself).
While both theories seems "rational" - neither of them can be given any statistical proof. You don´t have to be a climate- scientist to know that, knowlede of statistics will do fine.
Especially when you have long data-series AND there are only two (2) variables in the main theory - Co2 and temperature.
What is your point? Well I can see you have two scenarios and a retoric question in the end. You let the reader choose one of two seemingly different choices. Also you are letting the "easily led public" to think that they must choose at least one of these. It is also clear which one you prefer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople are not THAT stupid! If you want to use this kind of propaganda the examples must be more realistic, noone of your "choices" is going to happen, Most of the "easily led" people know that - which means they know better than you.
I am from Sweden, I live in Sweden, Swedish is my native language. Still I have to correct americans? who can´t speak or write their own language: the number of deniers is quite small, almost negligable. So you clearly don´t write about them. Then you must mean "sceptics to climate science" when you (wrongly) use the word deniers. This large "group" consists of many different kind of people who have many different reasons to be sceptic . Many of these people know probably mor about the science than you can imagine .And theyr are doubtful because of that - not because of lack of knowledge or intelligence. If you deny this, then you are the real denier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like that, Oneangryzoombie, and I have not seen anyone write about this earlier!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome months ago I worked for a number of hours studying this.
The question was whether AGW-science affects politic in Sweden or not.My conclusion was that it is impossible to win an election not only in Sweden but many European countries NOT having a "green agenda".
But because we are talking politics now - I also found that the iportant thing was to have an aganda and that people beleived the parties in question would realize it too.
But after the election, whatever they did whe they were in power it had NO IMPACT in the next election!
Yes, the question is hijacked by politicians. As an argument
before elections but meaning almost nothing after elections.
I was not suprised, but I was suprised learning how significant the differens was talking compared to doing.
There is always that kind of difference but here it was huge!
Hello Noretreat! The only person I know who actually IS a member of a flat world society is also the "hottest" alarmist I know!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou could think anything of IPCC and the reports, what scientist say - but the fact is that "tipping point" is not science, it is pure speculation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost people having some (univerity)knowledge of chemistry know why there is some confusion.
The real problem is as follows: What happens when our atmosphpere is saturated with CO2 sometime 2100-2200?
if we live as today. Clearly the oceans will not be saturated then why more CO2 goest to them than from them which makes their chemical composition slighly different than today. Maybe threathening life in the oceans. This could be more serious than "tipping point", maybe not serious at all.
But tipping point??? lol is all I can say.
Why we argue Gary Noel? Especially, why do we argue at SA?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause we want science, not believes in the cloths of science.
Maybe we discuss because the state of this science is not what most of the other sciences are - on a solid base.
Because I have studied Economics and Business Sciences at university (among other things) I can tell you that trying to prevent something that COULD be dangerous is to throw your money in the ocean. We can build windmills and use sunpower - for any reason - but not because a science that is all but mature. Smoking is dangerous, that we know, and we know how to prevent the danger so it is a different thing.
I Like that oneangryzombie! But I write here 1 hour in a month, theother 7190 hours I do something else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing I use to comment people using names such as "alarmist or "denier" when they write. The other thing I don´t like is when people write like "they who don´t think like me are stupid". I am astonished of that kind of arguments used by grown up people.
Especially I can´t understand why they discuss their (assumed) superiority at SA, that kind of thinking is contradictive to science. And not very funny to see at SA.
This is one of the greater problems SpoonmanWoS;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can´t set the agenda - everyone, even the most "anti-alarmist" has the right to his opinion. It may be wrong, it maybe right - still this right is essential for every civilized society.
You are not the one who decides what we can discuss or not,
if you can´t convince others it may be because you are the oe who are wrong! THAT is truly a reason to discuss further!
Now, knowledge is a question of doubt. If you don´t doubt you are a believer - even when it comes to science. Those scientists who don´t doubt are in the true mening of the word "non scientists".
I remember Axel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI remember also that Newton is known for gravity and - I would say, founding the basis for science. And I also remember that this was only one thing that occupied him, among others were optics - and alchemy.
I also remember that Einstein is known for two great theories, about light and about gravity. Also I remember that he was an anthagonist to Quantum Theory . Funny that he got his Nobel Prize - for his proof that light is a quantified phenomena,
Crtisism and questoning is the nutrition of science, not the opposite. That´s why we belive in warming today, not cooling as "the science" belived in for 30-40 years ago. And proof.
I always thought fossil fuels were the culprit, and certainly they must be a contributor, but I realized something recently I didn't know before. First I thought back to when my grandfather worked in the steel mill & it was booming in the 1950s and 1960s. We had many more plants open and greater pollution then (even though I know China has been ramping up), but we did not have accelerated heating as much then, and I would think with many factories having closed down 10-20 years ago in America, this pollution level might have gone down some (don't know what total vehicles and trucks are kicking out), but another thing I think we should be considering came up on Jesse Ventura's conspiracy theory show. He said one of the newer technologies (invented maybe 15-20 years ago) are the arrays of powerful towers that are being used by military, for oil and underground exploration, and communications where the technology frequently sends a signal into the atmosphere & bounces down off the atmosphere into the earth. Each time this is done, and its been done thousands of times, and I assume continues to be done, the ionosphere is heated up to a much higher level than fossil fuels or an accumulation of gases would cause. I really wish someone would look into this because if they are truly doing this regularly, it needs to be stopped before we burn ourselves up. I believe the primary main grid started in Alaska, but that a network of towers have placed across the country. Articles I have read show the power to be enormous. Ventura featured it because there were fears that it had the capability when tested to send radio waves into the brain and that the government was also using it to experiment on causing people to hear things, kill themselves, kill others, become weapons, etc. Look up Ventura's story and these HAARP towers and other towers and check it out & decide for yourself. I worked as a research scientist for years and to me the energy generated by these towers being directed over & over again right into our atmosphere seems more of a likely cause to quickly accelerate the temperature than the fossil fuels, although I'm not saying we shouldn't move also to more clean energy -- I definitely think we should continue to do that also.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI always thought fossil fuels were the culprit, and certainly they must be a contributor, but I realized something recently I didn't know before. First I thought back to when my grandfather worked in the steel mill & it was booming in the 1950s and 1960s. We had many more plants open and greater pollution then (even though I know China has been ramping up), but we did not have accelerated heating as much then, and I would think with many factories having closed down 10-20 years ago in America, this pollution level might have gone down some (don't know what total vehicles and trucks are kicking out), but another thing I think we should be considering came up on Jesse Ventura's conspiracy theory show. He said one of the newer technologies (invented maybe 15-20 years ago) are the arrays of powerful towers that are being used by military, for oil and underground exploration, and communications where the technology frequently sends a signal into the atmosphere & bounces down off the atmosphere into the earth. Each time this is done, and its been done thousands of times, and I assume continues to be done, the ionosphere is heated up to a much higher level than fossil fuels or an accumulation of gases would cause. I really wish someone would look into this because if they are truly doing this regularly, it needs to be stopped before we burn ourselves up. I believe the primary main grid started in Alaska, but that a network of towers have placed across the country. Articles I have read show the power to be enormous. Ventura featured it because there were fears that it had the capability when tested to send radio waves into the brain and that the government was also using it to experiment on causing people to hear things, kill themselves, kill others, become weapons, etc. Look up Ventura's story and these HAARP towers and other towers and check it out & decide for yourself. I worked as a research scientist for years and to me the energy generated by these towers being directed over & over again right into our atmosphere seems more of a likely cause to quickly accelerate the temperature than the fossil fuels, although I'm not saying we shouldn't move also to more clean energy -- I definitely think we should continue to do that also.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdjdell...just spent the last couple hours reviewing Jesses' webstuff...wikipedia has a really good write up on who he was and who he has become...(ps. always liked him..)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe show Conspiracy Theory was a poor move for him...I remember watching a couple and kept telling myself...what the f..k is he talking about...
The large amounts of energy were 3.6 megawatts in a 2.8 to 10 megahertz range (below fm radio..high end of am and low end of short wave)...just dont see how that can compare with the 174 petawatts(10^15 vs 10^6) recieved from the sun....ps...UHF was allowed 10 megawatts transmission....
pss...I think we need to move to renewables as fast as we can...which at the current pace will be never(at least in florida)....
jarmo says, "Clearly the oceans will not be saturated then why more CO2 goest to them than from them which makes their chemical composition slighly different than today. Maybe threathening life in the oceans."
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Seems as if YOU too are the speculation king, and coming from an economics major, possibly stepping into the boundaries of marine ecology and oceanography that are obviously not your strong suits.
According to real marine ecologists today, life is already being threatened in our oceans because of their CO2 absorption and acidification, While salt water is inherently alkaline due to the dissolved solids, sediment studies have shown that it has steadily decreased in pH between 1750 and the present more than at any other time in millions of years, and is already threatening life that thrives at higher pH values.
agenthucky: Truly people do not need more "awareness". One reason why common people turn their back to AGW is the so called "alarmism". Many people have a sound scepticism to things they don´t know much about. When their experience of AGW is that the message is almost religious it is just too much.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not that people don´t know and it is not that people don´t want to act - they just don´t believe in people telling them "undoubtable truths". It is also not helping that the same people talk about what we "must do", not giving any possibility to choose.
That did not work when the church had monopoly on what is "truth", it does not work when scientists act like the old church. It´s not about telling peopele and convincing them with scary scenarios, it is about showing respect to those who don´t think as you do.
By the way agenthucky: "frog in a pot" is not showing respeckt, it is telling people "I know better than you". It is that kind of argumetation that is most favourable to you opponennts, not you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do believe in man made global warming (the evidence is overwhelming), but regarding Minnesota....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "entire" state (I live there) is not checkerboarded with corn fields. Much of the eastern and northern aeas is forest, in fact more so than a generation ago.
jarmo says, "Then you must mean "sceptics to climate science" when you (wrongly) use the word deniers."
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Nah, I think that poster definitely means denier, since all scientists should be skeptics, but the fact remains that 97% of all actively publishing in CLIMATE SCIENTISTS, in peer-reviewed literature. think humans are changing global temperature.
Of course this does not take into account economists, especially conservative economists that fail to see how much more addressing climate change will cost in the future instead of addressing it today, mostly because these denialists are fossil fuel sycophants interested in instant gratification and continued profits.
Each day our sun delivers enough energy to support all life on our planet, and this free, abundant solar energy has the grace to rival every energy source we know, which scares those finite fossil fuel sycophants to death!
wayne says, "I think we need to move to renewables as fast as we can....which at the current pace will be never"
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Actually, more than half of all new electricity capacity added in the United States and Europe last year, was from renewable power such as wind and solar.
"Despite the impact of the financial crisis and lower OIL prices, renewable capacity grew at rates close to those in previous years...including PV power at 53% and wind power at 32%. Grid-connected PV power had grown by an average of 60% every year for the past decade, increasing 100-fold since 2000."
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=green-new-power-in-us
axel says, "Even if the temperatures are rising it means absolutely nothing whatsoever."
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Yeah, just like all the rest of your false accusations, like your denial of acid rain that has killed many pristine lakes, or that the devastation of rain forests continues today at rapid speed!
Modern-Day Plague
Deforestation is clearing Earth's forests on a massive scale, often resulting in damage to the quality of the land. Forests still cover about 30 percent of the world’s land area, but swaths the size of Panama are lost each and every year.
The world’s rain forests could completely vanish in a hundred years at the current rate of deforestation.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/deforestation-overview.html
I just want to remind of something when we talk energy, pollutions and so on. Most of the carbondioxid come - not from cars etc but heating and cooling our houses. That is true i nUS and also in Europe - the two regions that use quite a lot of the global oil-resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo why talk about cars and transportations? Because many environmentalist are NOT wanting better conditions at the first place (in Europe), the target is our "capitalist" economy where the private cars is the first thing to go. Not suprisingly many "environmentalists" are for govermental regulatioins in detail not only in the field of eco-things but all over.
But of course, the leader of Swedish eco-party drove a SUV untill last year when it became impossible to do so of pure political reasons. But "personally I love SUV:s he told his voters... the voters he wanted to forbid that kind of luxury.
to agenthucky. "Eventuelly people will understand..." I think that too. That people will understand that this science was not good. And that you were believing in false prophets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut you still have a good point - telling peopel what they don´t want to know is not the best thing to convince them. Telling them what they already know but disagree about is even worse.
I don´t have exact numbers of how many people that doubt on climate science or applause it but I don´t think there is any greater deviation in their knowlede of the subject. The most notable thing is that supporters tend to defend their view in a chauvinsist way while critics, partly because of that tend to be more rabid.
jarmo wrongly states, "the target is our "capitalist" economy"
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Nah....only an economist would spew that -- not a scientist!
The largest emissions of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere is from coal-fired electricity plants -- not vehicles -- and granted, that is used to heat and cool our shelters for the most part (with cooling increasing as our Earth warms), so if we increased the energy-efficiency of our shelters while moving away from coal-fired plants, we could reduce our CO2 emissions by huge amounts!
Too bad so many of the denialists just happen to be economists, since they are more worried about short-term economics instead of long-term environmentalism.
jarmo also states, "I don´t have exact numbers of how many people that doubt on climate science or applause it"
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Of course you don't, even after making rash statements about the hordes of denialists versus the 97% of CLIMATE SCIENTISTS, with peer-reviewed, scientific journal writings, that believe humans are changing our global temperature!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-do-you-get-when-you-put-100-climate-scientists-in-a-room.html
Global Warming's Deadly Denial
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReviewing the continued campaign by climate change skeptics, David McKnight, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales (Australia), notes that there several reasons why companies such as Exxon have had some success playing the global warming denial card. "First, the implications of the science are frightening. Shifting to renewable energy will be costly and disruptive. Second, doubt is an easy product to sell. Climate denial tells us what we all secretly want to hear. Third, science is portrayed as political orthodoxy rather than objective knowledge, a curiously postmodern argument," he writes. While the tobacco industry is often referred to as the template for the fossil fuel industry's campaign, McKnight argues that there is an important distinction. "There are no 'smoke-free areas' on the planet. Climate denial may turn out to be the world's most deadly PR campaign," he concludes.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Global_warming_skeptics
In January 2009, a poll of 3146 earth scientists found that 82% answered yes to the question: "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?". Of the 77 climatologists actively engaged in research, 75 answered yes (97.4%).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
note: none of the CLIMATOLOGISTS were economists!
I see there are still people posting here (the so-called climate skeptics) who apparently just never learned how to evaluate and compare sources of information. They can't balance all the conflicting sources out there and come up with a rational result. It may point to a failure of our education system, or perhaps just a failure of some people to seek an education. Or maybe some people just don't want to believe information they don't like. It may turn out that the human race is simply a race of ostriches. I do give the skeptics credit, though, for at least having the curiosity to read Scientific American.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe persons who do not believe in the facts are ignorant, unfortunate, driven by greed and clouted by their ego and are more or less devoid of any wisdom. There is one person who did capitalize (made heaps of money) on these class of persons is Richard Dawkins (Author of God Delusions). The truth about earth history is that we did have similar climates what we are experiencing now but what matters is really the PACE at which we are impacting the environment, and we all know that all things in nature needs time to adapt and sustain. We have already unleashed the juggernauts called stark capitalism, profit based corporate world and we are tied in the name of jobs and it will be very difficult and will take long time to stop this juggernaut. But definitely, we can all use more renewable energy with less environmental impact like solar power for all our needs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgary says, "But definitely, we can all use more renewable energy with less environmental impact like solar power for all our needs."
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Exactly, since every day, our sun delivers enough energy to support all life on our planet -- free and abundant power that has the grace to rival every energy source we know.
How come the Globe has cooled by at least .7C over the last 10-12 years. This fact is extremely embarrasing to climate scientists and was not even remotely predicted in their ridiculous climate model software that does not even predict what actually happened in the climate using historical data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the "signs" are going against AGW and accelerating so the AGW "Scientists" ,who are basically closet extreme social engineers and anthropogenic climate change has become a scientific faith, are starting to become manic .Their "message" is not getting through and people are daring to think for themselves ie: read the data correctly. And by the way 1930 was the warmest year on record not 1998 ,an error was made and has been admitted . Also statements like "carbon dioxide lingering in the atmosphere for centuries" bring into context the quality of this article. How can that be taking into account the annual CO2 input flux? Think about it!!!
There is so much more in this article that is absolute nonsense I can no longer be bothered commenting and leave it to Roy Spencer "Since we have no other evidence to go on, let’s pin the rap on humanity. It just so happens that’s the position politicians want, which is why politics played such a key role in the formation of the IPCC two decades ago."
I've never been to any of the other planets so no, I have no idea. What is it like on these other planets? Do you go there often?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI looked it upon the web. There is currently no evidence to support claims that Mars is warming at all. No warming has been observed on Jupiter. Pluto might be warming, but it is so far from the sun that it is unlikely to be related to solar intensity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for global warming/cooling, I want to invite everyone to check out this article: Testimony of John R. Christy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
Department of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Laboratory University of Alabama in Huntsville
Huntsville AL 35899, 10 July 1997
It is one of the best articles on satellite temperature measurements I have read to date explaining that global rise in atmospheric temperatures to date (of the article?) are (almost?)within natural variations. Land temperature increases are a different matter. But, enough of a rise was seen to conclude a cause for concern and continued monitoring.
NASA's Annual Mean Global Temperature data, when charted, really gives you the big picture when you take out the the urban readings. It essentially shows for the past several decades, that everywhere I clicked around the world, essentially no upward long term slant other than what appeared to be the natural up and down shorter time frame wiggles. Check this site: What The Stations Say by John L. Daly. http://www.johndaly.com/stations/stations.htm#The South Atlantic
Gary, did you read the recent article in SA about the Arctic ice cores? It claimed evidence that a previous Ice Age melted away in decades. That fast enough for you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMind you I did not beleive it any more than I beleive most of the trash that passes for science in this field.