With the beginning of Fall coming Monday morning at 10:44 AM (Autumnal Equinox), already folks are wondering what the upcoming Winter will bring. I'm not writing off this hurricane season just yet, at least until we start gettting some REAL cold fronts which the computers suggest will start coming in the next 10 days to 2 weeks. RIGHT NOW we have fast west winds across the Gulf and that should keep any troipcal activity from developing. Each day we get closer to October, the better I feel about putting an end to this active season.
How 'bout this Winter? Who knows? I've read many predictions that a cold, brutal winter is coming. Why? Acorns are bigger & more numerous. Huh? Yea, according to folklore, when a bad winter is coming, in order to provide animals with the food necessary to survive the cold, trees produce bigger & more numerous acorns. OK, well then how about hunters says they're finding birds growing more "pin feathers" this year? Supposedly that means the birds know a cold winter is coming. Hey, sounds good to me. More scientifically to me is the reports that the Sun has gone "cold". There has been no sunspot actrivity for over a year and that is telling some solar scientists that the Earth is entering a cooling cycle much like the "Marauder Millinium" back in the 1600s when the last "little ice age" occurred. Certainly what isn't happening is what Al Gore's movie predicted...increased CO2 will result in a hotter Earth.
11 comments:
The Earth is absorbing more energy from the Sun than it is giving back into space. The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world’s oceans.
The present trend of warmer sea temperatures, which have risen by an average of half a degree Celsius (0.9F) over the past 40 years, can be explained only if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, new research has revealed.
The results are so compelling that they should end controversy about the causes of climate change, one of the scientists who led the study said yesterday.
"The debate about whether there is a global warming signal now is over, at least for rational people," said Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "The models got it right. If a politician stands up and says the uncertainty is too great to believe these models, that is no longer tenable."
In the study, Dr Barnett’s team examined more than seven million observations of temperature, salinity and other variables in the world’s oceans, collected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and compared the patterns with those that are predicted by computer models of various potential causes of climate change.
It found that natural variation in the Earth’s climate, or changes in solar activity or volcanic eruptions, which have been suggested as alternative explanations for rising temperatures, could not explain the data collected in the real world. Models based on man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, however, matched the observations almost precisely.
My cave used to be covered by ice and snow now I can walk outside and see flowers growing...
In a few million years - if there are any prople left on earth keeping records that is - we'll have a better idea of global heating and cooling cycles and what causes them. Until then, it's all just a guess.
I would like Al Gore and Company to explain why the previous ice age of approximately 700 million years ago came to an end. There were no man made cars or factories to generate greenhouse gases, yet the temperature of the planet somehow increased to the point where the ice and snow melted.
In fact, there have been several ice ages over the lifetime of the earth, and all of them have come to an end without the help of humans beings.
Zoofer
Caveman...since you're so well read on global warming...try this site. http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/noaa_august_and_summer_numbers_again_not_jiving_with_satellite_data/
for one
Wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com also had a post on NOAA's discrepancy. They are cooking the book. Data was missing for large chunks including Canada.
Peterson and Karl should be fired.
Yea, if one disagrees with facts/truth, all that's left is to call the other side names. The Earth stopped cooling in 1998.
Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting thinner, melting and rupturing. For example, the largest single block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000. Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces.
The polar ice cap as a whole is shrinking. Images from NASA satellites show that the area of permanent ice cover is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade. If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free by the end of the century.
Snow and ice usually form a protective, cooling layer over the Arctic. When that covering melts, the earth absorbs more sunlight and gets hotter. And the latest scientific data confirm the far-reaching effects of climbing global temperatures.
Rising temperatures are already affecting Alaska, where the spruce bark beetle is breeding faster in the warmer weather. These pests now sneak in an extra generation each year. From 1993 to 2003, they chewed up 3.4 million acres of Alaskan forest.
Melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets also contribute to rising sea levels, threatening low-lying areas around the globe with beach erosion, coastal flooding, and contamination of freshwater supplies. (Sea level is not affected when floating sea ice melts.) At particular risk are island nations like the Maldives; over half of that nation's populated islands lie less than 6 feet above sea level. Even major cities like Shanghai and Lagos would face similar problems, as they also lie just six feet above present water levels.
Rising seas would severely impact the United States as well. Scientists project as much as a 3-foot sea-level rise by 2100. According to a 2001 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, this increase would inundate some 22,400 square miles of land along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, primarily in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.
A warmer Arctic will also affect weather patterns and thus food production around the world. Wheat farming in Kansas, for example, would be profoundly affected by the loss of ice cover in the Arctic. According to a NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies computer model, Kansas would be 4 degrees warmer in the winter without Arctic ice, which normally creates cold air masses that frequently slide southward into the United States. Warmer winters are bad news for wheat farmers, who need freezing temperatures to grow winter wheat. And in summer, warmer days would rob Kansas soil of 10 percent of its moisture, drying out valuable cropland.
http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/qthinice.asp
I like the "thicker proliferation of pinfeathers" theory as an explanation for a colder winter on the way.
But I see the point about a cooler sun. Either way, I'm happy. Being 7 months pregnant in the heat and humidity of the Gulf Coast ain't fun. Bring on those fronts!!
"Climate is changing in many ways. Global mean temperatures have been rising steadily over the last 40 years, with the six warmest years since 1860 occurring in the last decade. Regionally, the warming trend is greatest in northern latitudes, over land, and at night. Decreases in Arctic sea ice have been observed. Most studies indicate that ice loss has recently accelerated at the margins of Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet, whereas the East Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland interior appear to be gaining mass. In the U.S. most of the observed warming has occurred in the West and in Alaska. However, there are regional variations in the signature of climate change, with warming in the western U.S. but little or no annual temperature change in the southeast U.S. in recent decades. Temperature rises have significant hydrologic effects. Freezing levels are rising in elevation, rain occurs instead of snow at mid-elevations, spring maximum snowpack is decreasing, snowmelt occurs earlier, and the spring runoff that supplies over two-thirds of the western U.S. streamflow is reduced.
Evidence for warming is also observed in seasonal changes with earlier springs, longer frost-free periods and longer growing seasons, and shifts in natural habitats and in migratory patterns of birds.
Sea levels are generally rising around the world and glaciers are generally in retreat. A component of sea level rise is attributed to expansion due to a long-term increase in ocean heat content. The impacts of even small rises in sea level on coastal zones are expected to be severe, particularly in conjunction with storm surges associated with vigorous weather systems." -
American Meteorological Society
Bob getting confused are you not a memember of the AMS since 1990?
Global warming is coinciding with a term most people are unfamiliar with, which is "global dimming." This does not negate the consequences of global warming (which I believe there is irrefutable proof of an average annual increase) of warmth, but that this warmth is being generated with less light. This is not to say one balances out the other, but moreso disguise each other to a degree. The results of either are on a devastating trend (Caveman mentioned the Arctic ... yes, it's melting badly, worse than anyone predicted, second worst melting on record this year). More warmth from less light, both bringing their own unique damages to the planet and all macroscopic life forms). Wikipedia has more info for anyone that cares about global dimming, and there is also a scientific documentary existing on the topic. During the few days when all U.S. air traffic was halted, the amount of dimming drastically decreased. So, in effect, we have two huge problems existing and getting worse.
Wasn't there an "ice age" scare in the seventies? Now only 35 years later we have a genius like Al Gore saying we have to worry about "global warming". Isn't the Earth around 4 billion years old? and Al Gore around 60?
East coast turn for a hurricane! Coming in a week.
Quick notes:
You cannot shut-down the Atlantic currents (or any ocean currents for that matter) without first repealing the laws of conservation of angular momentum. I'm sure Bush is working on it, but no one's figured out how to repeal the laws of physics yet, so let's not get carried away.
As far as earth's temperatures, we think temps over land in the northern hemisphere are generally trending upward long term and medium term. Short term trending flat to down. Temp's over water? Who knows for sure, but satellite measurements show slight trend up medium term, very slight trend down short term. No data long term.
Geologically speaking, there is little evidence that current trends are unusual, unprecedented, or alarming in any way. There is not even any evidence that an ice free Arctic is unusual in any way. Many researchers believed it was commonplace in the 30's & 40's, but there's no satellite data to confirm. Some Arctic historians argue that permanent ice in the arctic during interglacials is more an anomaly than commonplace. That's why ice cores from the Arctic beyond short term are useless. It's speculation either way at this point, since records only go back 0.0000006% of its history. Hardly a reliable sample.
Unfortunately, we still lack reliable data to discern long or medium term global patterns. The planet's too big and covered with too much evidence erasing water. This makes global trend predictions, whether short, medium, or long term, purely speculative and unreliable. No one who values the scientific method should be arguing too vehemently otherwise.
Post a Comment