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Apr 28, 2009 12:30 PM | 16
Temperatures on the Eastern seaboard have risen to the high 80s and low 90s in recent days, 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for April in the region. Here in New York City, where Scientific American's offices are located, we may break the record high of 90 degrees Fahrenheit on this date set back in 1990. But as the temperature climbs in the Northeast and summer wilt sets in before trees have even budded out, it's worth remembering that weather is not climate.
Weather is the day-to-day temperature, humidity or precipitation that determines whether you'll wear your spring coat or strip down for summer. Climate is the overall combination of all these elements over a long period of time.
Temperature records kept since the 19th century reveal that global average temperatures are inexorably creeping up, a phenomenon dubbed climate change. The cause? Increasing levels of greenhouse gases, most commonly carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, which trap heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space, like a smothering blanket.
The effects of such climate change range from increasing extreme weather events (droughts to downpours) to subtly shifting forward the change of seasons from winter to spring, for example.
But that doesn't mean that climate change can be blamed for any given weather event, like this hot spell that may set high temperature records in New York City, among other places. Weather is too inherently variable to be blamed on any one thing (as the old saying in my home state of Missouri goes: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it'll change.")
Of course, it doesn't hurt to have record high temperatures as negotiators from the world's major economies meet in Washington, D.C. to discuss global efforts to combat climate change. Just remember, no individual weather event—from Hurricane Katrina to an early spring heat wave—can be conclusively tied to global warming. Only when you bundle them all together can you begin to see the picture of a climate that is changing.
Credit: © iStockphoto.com / Nick M. Do
Tags:
weather,
climate change,
global warming,
heat wave,
environment,
major emitters
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16 Comments
Add CommentGreenhouse gasses are the ONLY cause of climate change? Really? The sun doesn't even deserve a mention?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a surprisingly narrow viewpoint for a scientific journal.
I had come to expect better facts from the magazine.
What a disappointment to click on the link in an attempt to find out the real, unbiased scientific view of this politicized morass, and to only find a dumbed down snapshot.
Climate is usually defined as a statistical average of all weather patterns over a long term. But climate still includes all the weather situations occurring at a said time. So climate models are based on statistics, but also on chaos theory to calculate possible outcomes. The difficult bit is forecasting the sum total of turbulences at all scales and the dates at which they will occur. And by the way Technomystic, the IPCC do work with solar radiation scientists. Why not read up on it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"which trap heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space" - but I have a question. I must admit I am not formally trained at all in the capacities to understand the climate and the forces that work on it. But if these gases can stop heat from escaping - can they not stop heat from entering as well? Or do the cosmic rays from the sun come in too hard and too fast for this "Blanket" to turn away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would appreciate anything anyone can do to clear this up a little bit for me. Thanks in advance.
I have to agree with Technomystic that a very narrow view has been expressed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems every time science proclaims something the ONLY cause or "conventional thinking" something else pops up that wasn't considered.
jstyle, the energy from the sun comes in at higher wave lengths, such as visible and UV, which pass through CO2 and methane. This energy is then absorbed by the surface of the earth, and re-emitted as infrared (heat), which is reflected by the green house gasses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is much more detail on the greenhouse effect available.
Sure. But what really matters is that climate change *does* and *will* lead to increasing numbers of increasingly hot days. So a day like today is going to be the new normal in 50 years (or less). <sarcasm> It's like practice! </sarcasm>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTechnomystic is creating a straw man. The article was pointing out the difference between climate and weather and accomplished that task.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sun isn't a cause of climate CHANGE because the sun's influence is stable. When you are looking at climate CHANGE, you need to look at items that have not been stable. That would stand to reason. Might there be other causes of climate change besides greenhouse gases? Technomystic and others are certainly welcome to put them forward if they have an actual study or even some decent rationale, but a snide 'what about the sun' makes you as narrow minded and unscientific as what you claim to dislike.
if these gases can stop heat from escaping - can they not stop heat from entering as well? Or do the cosmic rays from the sun come in too hard and too fast for this "Blanket" to turn away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe part that your missing that is leading to the quandary is that when the sun rays hit a surface that surface radiates the light back, but the wavelength has changed. The light rays come from the sun with a lot of energy which means that they will have shorter wavelengths. These pass through the atmosphere. When it bounces back from the surface with this longer wavelength is can no longer easily pass through the atmosphere. This is the greenhouse effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
This change in wavelength is what plants use to spin their biochemistry into producing sugars from water and gas exchange. This is photosynthesis. This change in wavelength is what creates all the food calories that everything living on this rock needs (aside from small life forms living in a volcano tube at the bottom of the ocean of course). In fact your car runs on this saved energy.
It's also worth mentioning that if you look at the solar system you'll see that even though Mercury is the closes planet to the sun it is still not as hot as Venus. Venus is similar in size to Earth but it's the hottest planet (minus the semi-stars like Jupiter) because of it's greenhouse effect. This shows how important the greenhouse is for plants and their temperature. Earth doesn't need more sun to get hotter. It just has to put what little sun it does get to work more times by trapping it once it gets here.
It's not like there is a cosmic rule that says that because we are X miles from a sun of this size that we will have an atmosphere and climate that is suitable to life. What's important is that the chemistry of life requires a temperature that our atmosphere is tuned to producing. Small changes in that synchronistic can have dramatic changes to the conditions that life requires.
What is the evidence that the sun's influence is stable? Isn't that just an assumption that may or may not be correct? We've had ice ages and global warmings several times in the history of the earth. Were CO2 levels responsible for them too? Another question I have for those who want to sequester CO2. How easy will it be to release the CO2 to warm the earth, should we be threatened with an ice age?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSciAm, why would you publish an article that does not have complete scientific support? It is irresponsible. Also I don't like the use of climate change to lighten the use of global warming. The planets temperature changes over time, sometimes up and sometimes down. Research of ice cores shows the Earth has gone through many cycles. Just because it is politically fashionable to support the notion that evil humans are polluting the environment, does not make it a scientific fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey people, this is 60 second science. It is about the difference between weather and climate. It is not about the cause(s) of climate change. With or without fluctuations in solar radiation the "greenhouse effect" is a scientific fact. Another scientific fact hyonemura3 is that humans ARE polluting the environment. I will leave a discussion as to what is or is not politically fashionable to social scientists. God only knows what the evil humans are doing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain more innuendo from a science journal, wanting to "make" news than report news.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith thousands of air handling units, lighting, electrical devices, and then man made surfaces all contributing to heat absorption, its no wonder that cities or urban areas give off extra background heat. But is this normal earth temperature transients? I don't think so! Outside of the major cities, temperatures are fuctuating normally, but urban people only experience urban temperatures therefore express through the MSM only their experience. With major urban areas controlling ownership of the mass media outlets, and their only experience being that of urban temperatures then yes, our temperatures would be that of a warming trend. But its all false, we are not in a warming trend, and we are not going to hell with global climate change, or green house gases. But we are going to hell by over reactionary urban city dwellers hell bent on social engineering a false ideology on the rest of us.
There is absolutely no reason to put monumental laws and regulations onto our fossil fuelled power generation suppliers, or put carbon caps on heavy industry to reduce an emission product that isn't a pollutant. We are being lead by scammers, and opportunists trying to force a program down our throats making us eliminate our manufacturing sector, and affordable power supplies.
In one generation of people we will have destroyed 150 years of industrialization of North America. And for what? Because people like Al Gore have total control of the ears of the MSM.
Just look at what happened at the conference where big Al Gore spoke. Another person wanted to rebutt Big Al's speech, but the person wishing to address the conference who doesn't support "climate change" was denied access. Where's the fairness in that? I forgot, in a liberal world fairness only applies when the speaker is in full agreement with the liberal world, all others please apply at the door. Access is restricted.
"Another person wanted to rebutt Big Al's speech, but the person wishing to address the conference who doesn't support "climate change" was denied access."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about some detail on who or what this person was? What were their credentials? Publications? Involvement with climatologists? Also, what kind of conference?
I'm inclined to believe this person might have been a mudslinger / inflammatory hand-waver with little to no actual data supporting any of their claims, or worse, a stack of manufactured statistics. Come to think of it, that reminds me of several people posting on this very thread.
Yes I might be wrong, but it's hard to grant the benefit of the doubt to people that display a tendency for taking unique and irrelevant events and displaying them as trends or statistics which overwhelmingly refute whatever idea it is they disagree with.
Since we're in the longest solar minimum since 1913, which should be causing cooling according to those who claim that solar activity is the greatest forcing agent of climate, bringing GCR into this discussion would be a moot point. That's pretty much the last leg the skeptics have had to hop on, and it's gone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat climate debate???? what is up with the science magazine of this wholesale swallowing of Climate Change/Global warming??? www.climatedebate.com i want diversity not rah-rah-rah....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe subject of this column is not small. It is a book entitled Heaven And Earth, which will be published tomorrow. It has been written by one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists, Professor Ian Plimer. He is a confronting sort of individual, polite but gruff, courteous but combative. He can write extremely well, and Heaven And Earth is a brilliantly argued book by someone not intimidated by hostile majorities or intellectual fashions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html?page=-1