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Snowpocalypse. Snowmageddon. Whatever your preferred appellation, this week's winter storms brought misery to denizens of the U.S. east coast and prompted some at least to question the scientific theory of climate change.
After all, shouldn't global warming deliver us from ice, snow and cold? The site of the Winter Olympics seems to think so, Vancouver experienced the warmest January on record and may have to import snow. Thirty-two people have died during an ongoing heat wave in Brazil. In fact, globally speaking, this January was the warmest in the last three decades.
Sadly, climate change won't save you from bundling up, or shoveling. Even in a much warmer world, there will still be colder than average winters. What's worse, U.S. government scientists predicted last year that global warming will actually increase snowstorms, thanks to the potent combination of more moisture in the atmosphere from warmer average temperatures paired with the usual cold of winter. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted the same in 2007. In short, winter storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, with stronger winds.
Ultimately, the storm of blather surrounding recent weather events can largely be blamed on a fundamental misunderstanding. Weather is the day-to-day temperature, humidity and precipitation. Climate is the overall combination of all these events over a long period of time. No single weather event—heat wave, hurricane or blizzard—tells us much about climate.
—David Biello
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38 Comments
Add CommentThe World is flat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust look outside at any parking lot - flat.
Go to Texas and look at the plains - flat.
The planet is obviously flat.
Maybe when people sail near the edge of the world god mysteriously turns them around and points them to another place. Maybe the space program is myth that was all done on sound stages in Arizona - or maybe god, again, fools people's perception into thinking the world is roughly spherical.
These are the pseudo-logical arguments put forth by Climate Change deniers like Sen. Inhofe. It is amazing to think that a US Senator can be so utterly ignorant. Unfortunately many people believe him and other deniers. Not very persuasive, are they?
The east coast snows are completely consistent and were generally predicted by climate change. Warmer air holds MORE moisture and "what goes up must come down." The boundary areas between the arctic and temperate zones and the temperate and tropical zones are becoming less stable. This leads to extreme weather, which has been in abundance for the last decade especially.
Tipping points, latency and change on a longer time frame just do not seem to make sense to some people.
It's true that single, localized events, like the current heavy snowfall in the Eastern U.S., don't provide much information about trends. And we see far too much argument by anecdote in the global warming debate (e.g. big chunks of ice breaking off Antarctica).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill, it is disheartening when a purported scientific theory, such as AGW, can blithely account for ANY occurrence in nature. More storms? Global Warming. Fewer storms? Global Warming. Flooding? Drought? You guessed it! Global Warming.
AGW is a political agenda, not a scientific theory. True, a few storms do not a theory discount. Conversely, neither do a few decades of warming that has already diminished from the record prove any predictions of a disastrous future. The agenda is all about money and control. It is a remnant of the anti-establishment radicalism of the 1960s, the perfect catch-all to bridle capitalism and all it stands for in the minds of the brainwashed. The so-called "deniers" are actually the heroes of the day, daring to continue the debate that true science has built upon for centuries. And every day, the AGW flock scramble for excuses as new evidence mounts against their cause - not a harsh winter, but the actual physical data itself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suppose the CO2 levels are a fraud also?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts a conspiracy I tell you, a conspiracy!!
Seriously, you deniers make the area 51 conspiracy theorists seem rational. Why not add your page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories
I agree with Candide, We are in an El-Nino Seaon exaggerrated by Global warming, being the extra snowy winter in the northeast, This was also shown by the Texas Drought/Heat Wave of last summer where they broke the record for 100+ degree days of 36 in San Antonio by 25, that's right 60 or more 100+ degree days. You tube documents this. Politics has taken a hold of this debate, unfortunately and there is little truth to be had on the radio/tv in America about it. A main driver of global warming is out black roads, and black rooftops, residential heating and cars along with green house gasses.. The world needs to become more heat neutral, and soon.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo The other day I was looking to prove my honest belief that the world is warming(surmised by frequently checking Cryosphere Today, and Nasa GISS data, two sites that should be studied before ever writing an article on global warming), so I went to The Weather Channels website, keep in mind they deny global warming is happening, I'm sure they're payed nicely to do so, and I checked the amount of record high tempurates vs the amount of record low tempuratures in my city in the 2000's, do you know what I came up with? Fifty record highs! and two record lows!!!
Flycaster...Really? You are denying the actual global warming? If you want to be rational about your argument at least choose some form of defendable ground. Say for example, that you don't think the shorter time lines are realistic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr you doubt that any measures we take to curb CO2 will have sufficient effect.
But denying the actual facts, that's just, well not the brightest position.
Just saying.
ok please base future comments on data not politcal offiliation
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFlycaster...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally?You are denying fact of Global Warning?
Seriously Dude. At least choose defendable ground. Say that you doubt the shorter time lines.
Or that you don't think any of the measures we could take will have any substantial effect of CO2 .
That you think the suggested policies will have a larger cost or detrimental effect.
Denying the fact of it just makes you look, well not very informed.
Just saying.
"...this week's winter storms brought misery to denizens of the U.S. East Coast and prompted some at least to question the scientific theory of climate change."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is only because "some" people are complete idiots.
People can scream conspiracy until they loose their voices, knock down straw men until the cows come home and reference hundreds if not thousands of websites chalk full of bogus pseudoscience. But in the end all the bickering in the world isn't going to change the fundamental reality which is that global temperatures are rising.
People can believe whatever they wish but there is only one truth.
Very true, there can be two "sides" to a story, but that does not make them both valid and true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDecades of science back up Climate Change. A few years of vitriol "back up" (with few if any 'facts') the deniers.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_growth
It is nice to laugh at others when you predict the future and they will not agree. But to cover all the bets you can not bet on just one future. You must have a plan for every possible future. That includes the very real possibility that the future will follow astronomical forces into an ice age. If so, warming trends in the atmosphere will be a blessing - not a curse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink of he Earth as having a thermostat. In May you turn it down and in November you turn it up. We know how to change it, but many do not care what the conditions will bring us. Picking one space on the roulette wheel may win a lot of money - but it is not sure bet.
Those who predict the weather,m need to be ready to go either way.
That is not to deny any warming forces, but it is smart enough to get out of the warming box.
Danthrax, you could be misreading the connective statements being made about AGW and events. The only real connections anyone credible is drawing are the events that are extremes of norm, or alterations of norms. That's not the same as claiming "any" event is thus connected in some imagined unreasonable way. Just a thought.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisflycaster... seriously, dude. Your logic and "facts" are so inverted it's just impossible to take seriously. Want some more tea for that baggage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBack to science....
All
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou talk about science. Here is a link that you need to check out. I was a meteorologist in the Navy so know something about this.. http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html
Listen and realize it is about money and that is all.
@Danthrax - "it is disheartening when a purported scientific theory, such as AGW, can blithely account for ANY occurrence in nature" - why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is NOT any occurrence in nature. Earthquakes and Volcano's are most likely not at all influenced by Climate Change. If all the other things you mention, more storms, fewer storms, flooding, drought all have origins in (or are heavily influenced by) the atmosphere - then isn't your "disheartening" belief really arbitrary?
One chunk of ice in Antarctica equals nothing. One storm (fewer or more) equals nothing. But repeated events, events that consistently increase over time, events that are and have been tracked for many decades (or longer) can show trends.
The idea that such a broad consensus among scientists from many nations could be a conspiracy if rubbish. It could, in theory be wrong, but not a conspiracy. The data itself, CO2 levels and temperature mainly, is in no doubt. What it means and why it is happening can be debatable.
Scenario 1. Climate Change scientists are wrong. The earth is not warming and headed towards catastrophe. But we (humans) take some action, reduce carbon, move towards renewable or clean energy.
What is the downside? Maybe a little money spent earlier than it should have been?
Scenario 2. Climate change is real. The highest estimates prove to be very conservative (the climate changes faster than predicted). We humans do nothing but yell at each other, then (after years or decades perhaps) incontrovertible evidence is clear to everyone. We need to scramble and it ends up costing many times more and being far less effective - best case.
As I see it these are the extremes in the "argument."
Which scenario would you rather see occur?
Maybe the dinosaurs were intelligent and realized their fecal matter was causing global warming and plugged their butts to save the planet, thus resulting in their demise. Very noble! The point is that the earth has undergone dramatic climatic changes over it's history. Just because man has the mental capacity to understand that changes are occurring doesn't mean he's causing it. I am not so quick to blame mankind and start basing economies on the notion. If I receive a grant to study climate change, then it's not in my best interest to conclude anything other than catastrophic consequences if not studied further and drastic investments made. I am not impuning the integrity of all scientists, but in honesty, there are bad apples in all professions. We can blame that on mankind. Fear is the oldest hook in the con game. Make people afraid of something or make them think all is lost if they don't do a certain thing or buy a certain thing and the hook is set. Time to start raking in the money. I believe that we should reduce our footprint where practical. Common sense must be exercised and hysteria quashed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a basic concept of science that a theory which cannot be disproved is, pardon the French, bull. So "global warming" predicts a cold winter, huh. It also predicted an increase in hurricanes - and there were none - yet somehow it remains valid in the opinion of SA. Check the latest issue of SCIENCE. CO2 levels were lower 80000 years ago, but sea levels were higher. I think warming fanatics are so completely out of their depth now it is almost funny (if it weren't so expensive).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEd.
Dear Ed:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate is MACRO... Its looking at the entire world over a LONG period of time.
The surge in temperatures over the past 30 years has already made hurricanes more severe. Not more frequent, but more intense, with stronger winds, longer durations, more rainfall and even less predictable paths. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18825281.300
Also, try to remember you are not the WHOLE world. There were fewer hurricanes last year than average. But there were hurricanes. No hurricanes devastated the US. That doesn't really prove there were no Hurricanes. If you see my point?
I'm in el Nino-land, too. The last three winters have been cold and deep in snow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis winter is warm and mild. If this is global warming - Yay Global Warming!
Winter happens every year, it doesn't prove the entire planet is cold. Where I am might be a little cold, but the point is, that is not the entire planet. Our winters in Minnesota are warmer, and the last two have been snowier. Before that, the temperature was rising more every winter. We had thunder-snowstorms in December and tornadoes in October in the last five years. Obviously, this is not normal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery true -- if I say the sky is blue and a global warming denier says it's red, that's not their opinion. It's just simple ignorance, or a deliberate lie. There are not always two sides to everything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thised marino, you're a fucking moron, hurricanes only happen on this side of the world, ass, I bet rush limbaugh told you that in his sniveling moron voice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisonce again must I say, 50 record high temps in my city in the last 10 years and only 2 record low temps, confirmed by weather.com, who are probably payed to deny global warming, go study some data, listening to the radio is not data!
All of these arguments only go to show how fragile we see the natural nature our world is, but it is ludicrous and arrogant to assume that within the last 200 years mankind has been solely responsible for "global warming" to a planet that has been changing for 4.5 BILLION years!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting! Global warming is responsible for cooling. Is there any meteorological condition existing today that is not caused by global warming? Using the criterion established by science historian Karl Popper, what conceivable test could be devised to disprove global warming? If none exists...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't believe your shiverin' arse! Just because 49 states have snow on the ground TODAY -- doesn't mean that it ain't warmin' up all over!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEast Anglia CRU would be proud of SciAm Kook-Aid.
Ref- Natedog at 08:13 PM on 02/11/10
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy are people idiots because they question something?
Science progresses because things are questioned.
Your way is just like the Christian controllers of a few hundred years ago.
If you questioned what the authorities told you to believe you could expect the Inquisition to give you some preliminary treatment before getting rather hot at a thing called the Stake.
May peace and mercy be with you my Son.
Whether it's malaria, hunger, failed states, oil, most Americans are barely conscious of the outside world. It's been this way for a long time, even now when the world has imploded and power centers have shifted. So it's not surprising that a tough winter or even a big snow storm could completely eclipse what's happening to the climate on a global scale, how some areas could be experiencing record heat. News from the outside world just doesn't filter in.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"What's worse, U.S. government scientists predicted last year that global warming will actually increase snowstorms, thanks to the potent combination of more moisture in the atmosphere from warmer average temperatures paired with the usual cold of winter. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted the same in 2007."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm looking for chapter and verse on this. It's news to me and I have argued that it isn't so. If I'm wrong I'd like to know.
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/02/hill-of-snow.html
Who's in denial now? The data methodology (what gets published, what doesn't) has been unwound by East Anglia et. al. Reports are now surfacing of exaggeration and clear falsehoods by other various organizations as well.This shows clear patterns of data manipulation, suppression and some bald-faced lying. Therefore, the entire theory of man made climate change is suspect. Note I didn't say untrue- I said suspect. The data needs to be de-politicized, and the scientific truth (not Truth- there is no such thing in science) pursued vigorously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFINALLY!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat we've known all along has been confirmed. "Global warming" not only isn't caused by man's activity. It isn't even occurring. All the hysteria was for naught but profit.
Surprise! "Climatology" is NOT a science. (When else have we ever seen religious terms such as "orthodoxy" and "cherished beliefs" applied to adherents of a supposed kind of science? Gore was selling a phony religion with worldwide implications for a fantastic govt.-enforced income for himself based on a huge fearmyth, but now the polar bear is out of the bag.)
The mini ice age starts here
By David Rose
Last updated at 11:17 AM on 10th January 2010
I am a nerd wanna-be, I am not a "denier" of climate change aggravated by human activity, and I am an advocate for cleaning up our act on this planet. However, this has been my one big problem with SciAm over the years: those credible, well-respected and published researchers who question the AGW theory (because of undisputed evidence of fraud, substantive research revealing different results, or both) are portrayed as imbeciles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was shocked when, upon listening to an interview with Lord Christopher Monckton concerning this issue, I was forced to the conclusion that SciAm is, at least in part, a political magazine. Lately, more scientists are speaking out in the same vein, and it continues to amaze me that SciAm refuses to give ear to the other side of the story without demonstrating conclusively how this other evidence is a complete fabrication.
Without resorting to name-calling and "vitriol," we SHOULD be questioning and having debates on all scientific issues- that's what science is all about!
I still love SciAm, having subscribed for more than ten years, and I won't give up on it because of this one issue. But my take-away from this situation is "buyer beware."
@flycaster: would like to converse with you more on the subject! Not that I completely agree with you, but I do believe that there is a strong undercurrent of politics involved in this issue which tends to override true scientific discourse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are at time when we have been asked to rely on and trust various experts that they know the answer, we were told that HRT was scientifically sound and we bought it and spent billions of dollars in the process, we were told that vioxx was safe and we bought it and spent more billions, we were sold on the idea that everyone could get a mortgage again the experts assured us that everything would be fine and we lost trillions of dollars in the process. Is it any wonder that the American public is skeptical of the experts, usually with agendas. Is it any wonder that so many are attracted to the anti-intellectualism of a Sarah Palin, They are tired of being deceived. They view the global warming..climate change..as another scam promoted by another group of EXPERTS that have come up with another way to extract monies from the common man, who by the way, can't seem to find a job to pay for food, let alone save the polar bear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat Does Winter Weather Reveal about Global Warming?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing.
On the other hand, the lies by East Anglia and Penn State are deafening. Hockey, anyone?
Maybe climate change / global warming means colder winters and warmer summers - extremes at both ends.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a climate change skeptic I, like the good senator, know that the ice caps are melting because someone forgot to turn off the sun during the winter. It's obvious to anyone but the stupidest idiots among us. Idiots are elected by idiots and I'm proud to be an idiot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know anyone who is denying global warming. The issue is anthropogenic global warming, that the heating of the earth is something more than a natural cycle and I am amomg many who are not convinced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe 600 pound gorilla in the room that the climate change community dances around and ignores is the question as to how much of the CO2 in the atmosphere derives from industry rather than the bioshpere. No one at the IPCC appears to even to be willing to approach the most important question in the entire controversey.
Candidate: Consider this about CO2, in the past, atmospheric levels have been 10 to 15x higher than at present levels. It is now known that CO2 increases after
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswarming periods. This means it comes out of the oceans, for the most part. Since the industrial age, it has been asserted that CO2 has increased 100 ppm in the atmosphere from 285ppm to about 385 ppm now. Since anthropogenic CO2 is roughly 4% of the total, with half remaining airborne, then for this 100 ppm, only 2ppm is anthropogenic.
I have not seen any evidence to show conclusively that
CO2 in the presence of so much GHG water vapor causes any significant global warming. Since water vapor is a GHG and is available in vast amounts, global warming should have happened eons ago. It has not. This can mean only one thing, that the GHE(greenhouse effect)is maxed out for now and adding more GHGs will not increase earth's temperature significantly. The GHG gases are not saturated, but simply put, there is not enough energy left in the wavelengths needed to further warm the atmosphere.