Global Warming might be real

[Guest JHawk]

Written by Andrew Bridges of the Associated Press:

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Dec. 8) - The northernmost reaches of the Earth are warming, reducing the sea ice across the Arctic Ocean, melting the ice sheet in Greenland and spreading shrubs into the Alaskan tundra, scientists said Saturday.

 

Taken individually, the changes only suggest the region's climate is undergoing a warming trend. Together, they provide dramatic evidence the change is real, a panel of scientists said during at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

 

``If you look at all the data sets together, they do provide compelling evidence something is changing over a great area,'' said Larry Hinzman, of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

 

Natural variability may be behind the changes, but human activity might also be to blame, scientists said.

 

A new five-year research plan presented this week by scientists and government officials meeting in Washington, D.C., asserts that people clearly are agents of environmental change, though it is still unclear how much human activity contributes.

 

President Bush wants industry to voluntarily cut smokestack and tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that scientists believe are leading to a global rise in temperatures.

 

Evidence of the rise can be seen across the Arctic already, scientists said Saturday.

 

Greenland is experiencing a warm spell unseen since the 1930s. Satellite data show the greatest area of melt across its mammoth ice sheet in 24 years of measurements occurred this year.

 

Since 1979, the melt area has grown by 16 percent and is affecting higher and higher elevations.

 

Across the Arctic Ocean, the floating mantle of ice that covers it throughout much of the year shrank to record levels this summer, said Mark Serreze, also of the University of Colorado. In September, sea ice extent was 4 percent lower that that seen in any previous September since monitoring began in 1978.

 

Changes in Arctic atmospheric and marine circulation patterns are partly responsible, but depletion of the ozone layer due to pollution may also play a role, Serreze said.

 

On land, too, scientists note changes that suggest temperatures are rising. Shrubs are pushing farther northward, growing in areas of tundra that were void of trees as little as 50 years ago, said F. Stuart Chapin III of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

 

``The real question is, is this recent trend unusual, is this recent trend cause for concern that we are having an effect? The answer seems to be yes,'' Serreze said.

 

So basically, they monitored the water level and ice level, there's more water, and they think it's all the humans' fault despite having none no research of that subject.

 

This doesn't explain the Carolinas having one the biggest ice storms they've seen in years.

 

Personally, I'm not denying it's a possible, but they haven't actually done the research they're proposing. I quote again:

 

A new five-year research plan presented this week by scientists and government officials meeting in Washington, D.C., asserts that people clearly are agents of environmental change, though it is still unclear how much human activity contributes.

 

How can you say it's clear and then say "But we don't know how much it contributes." That's like saying "This WWE angle drew money, but we can't prove how much it made for us.

 

Comments?

[Guest Mad Dog]

Global Warming as far as I've read is a myth.

 

Track down what people were saying about it in the 70s.

 

We were supposed to be in pretty big trouble in a lot of areas. They just update this gloom and doom stuff every 5 yrs. or so environmentalists have something to bitch about.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

The reason that things aren't as bad now as the 70s predicted is due to emissions laws and anti-CFC measures being put into effect, thus slowing the effects long enough to allow the hole in the ozone layer to start to close back up, or maybe people like to ignore the reports that say that environmental measures are actually working. Humans have a LOT to with the planet being in the shape it's in, and thanks to these people in the 70s that you speak of with such disdain, things aren't as bad as they would be had we sat on our asses and blamed it all on nature.

[Guest Mad Dog]

The reason I speak with disdain towards them is b/c I read stuff for class and it's almost word for word what they said in the 70s with the same time frame and everything. It never seems to change. They say something go away for a few years and then come back with the same exact thing as before.

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

It isn't like the rate at which certain things do damage changes. The reasoning behind coming back with the same information later on isn't to piss anyone off, it's really more of a reminder. Often, like a lot of issues, the environment will be a huge story that everyone talks about, then everyone will sort of forget about it for a while until it's brought up again. Remember the HUGE movement during the early 90s? It was almost evil to eat a hot dog. Also, environmental laws often aren't enforced or aren't strict enough, leaving lots of short-term improvements, but long-term damages.

[Guest DrTom]

... thus slowing the effects long enough to allow the hole in the ozone layer to start to close back up...

The "hole in the ozone layer" was a reduction in ozone over an area in Antarctica. It was later found to be part of a natural fluctuation of ozone in that area, and the levels rose and fell as part of a pattern. However, just like asbestos and science, one unfounded panicked claim leads to Scare Science, and down the slope we go.

 

The fact is that 38 of the 50 states set their record high temperatures BEFORE 1950, which is inconsistent with the pattern supposedly established by global warming. Maybe it does exist, but I've yet to see strong evidence speaking out for it.

 

(I had to retype this after the forums crashed, and I *know* I left a point out. I can't remember what it was, though. Fucking forums! )

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Asbestos was an unfounded panic claim? Hmm, I think my dead grandfather would wheezingly disagree with you.

[Guest B-X]

Asbestos was an unfounded panic claim? Hmm, I think my dead grandfather would wheezingly disagree with you.

I don't care what anyone says, there is no come-back or rebuttal of ANY SORT to that kind of retort.

[Guest NoCalMike]

The point is. Just because there are holes in the "global warming" theory exist, does not mean that polluting the earth beyond belief is a good thing. It certainly is NOT making the earth a better place. No one can agree that the more pollution is better, or that it is having ZERO affects on our climate and enviornment.

[Guest bob_barron]

I've noticed that there's been less snow and it's been a lot hotter in NY the past few years

[Guest Kotzenjunge]

Asbestos was an unfounded panic claim? Hmm, I think my dead grandfather would wheezingly disagree with you.

I don't care what anyone says, there is no come-back or rebuttal of ANY SORT to that kind of retort.

Not trying to come up with some sort of shock retort, and in fact, I regret bringing that up in the first place. The point is that he died of Asbestosis from being in the Navy and working for a munitions plant in Aiken, SC, two places which both had prodigious amounts of asbestos lining their ceilings and walls.

[Guest EricMM]

Global Warming as far as I've read is a myth.

You're wrong and that's a fact. Carolinas would have more ice storms because Global Warming causes more storms in general. It does not raise the temperature enough to turn winter into summer, but it increases the amount and severity of storms in general. So having more snowfall is as good an indicator of global warming as heavy rainfall would be. If you're expecting to raise the temperature during winter from 20 to 33 degrees, well, that would have such a huge effect on the environment, but that kind of shift will take a while. Not that it's not going to happen at this rate...

 

The "hole in the ozone layer" was a reduction in ozone over an area in Antarctica. It was later found to be part of a natural fluctuation of ozone in that area, and the levels rose and fell as part of a pattern. However, just like asbestos and science, one unfounded panicked claim leads to Scare Science, and down the slope we go.

Please point this article out to me. I would like to see it. Yes, the ozone "hole" wasn't a hole, merely a lowering of the amount of ozone over an area. Does this make it any less dangerous? We are lucky that CFCs and other Ozone depleting chemicals have disappeared from public use, because ozone holes are stablized, and will regenerate if we keep the trend going.

 

There have been outstanding reductions in the amount of pollutants we put in the air in most if not all areas. We are still dumping waaaaaay too much carbon into the air for our own good, but hopefully in the next 10 years fuel cells will start being phased into cars and powerplants, and we can clean up our act a bit in that regard. But anyone who is calling Global Warming a myth or joke needs to face reality. It's not a myth, it's real. We won't blacken the earth or anything, and we won't raise the temperature to levels we can't stand, but we will raise sea levels enough to flood a lot of areas at low sealevels, and shift climates around a lot.

[Guest big Dante Cruz]

Um, listen, the levels of ozone aren't constant. They fluctuate all the time. Therefore, it's real easy to say the sky is falling, or to read only about the Depression and point to that as reasons for communism.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Global Warming as far as I've read is a myth.

You're wrong and that's a fact.

It's not a fact that he's wrong. There are scientist who don't think there's gloabl warming.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Well here is what I don't understand. When we pollute the air, with WHATEVER we use, where does it go, does it magically just go into outerspace and not harm anything in it's path? Look at Los Angeles and the Phillipines. It is like one constanst smog cloud hanging over the city. That can't be healthy. See whether global warming is real or not is a whole seperate issue, all you need to do is think smaller scale like your own health about what you breathe everyday. Pollution at the level it is right now is NOT A GOOD THING for us.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

It's still cold as fuck outside right now...

 

We are actually overdue for another ice age.

[Guest EricMM]

There are scientist who don't think there's gloabl warming

Yes, you're right. And there are scientists who support all of Rob Johnstones ideas. There are scientists who support EVERYTHING. But the MAJORITY of scientists support the global warming theory. I'm still shocked that some many people enjoy keeping their heads in the sand.

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

How about this article From the Philly Inquirer:

 

After mild winters, a possible sea change

Som say a freshwater crimp in the Gulf Stream could bring a sudden shift to biting cold.

By Anthony R. Wood

Inquirer Staff Writer

 

Scientists have been warning that the Earth is slowly heating up, that the recent run of gentle winters in the United States is no fluke, but the warm-up to the big meltdown.

 

Now, however, comes a chilling prediction from some of the same experts. Before the climate gets balmier, they say, it could take a sudden turn toward the frigid - and stay that way for decades, if not centuries.

 

In the Northeast, subzero temperatures could become standard winter fare, filling rivers with ice chunks, cutting short the growing season, and altering bird migrations. The cold and snow of the last week would feel like spring break.

 

Behind that brutal scenario is a baffling ocean phenomenon that experts have watched with rising angst: an expanding mass of freshwater in the usually salty North Atlantic that has spread alarmingly in the last seven years. It now reaches south from Greenland to just off the coast of the Carolinas, an area of 15 million square miles.

 

If the buildup continues, they say, it could impede the Gulf Stream, a major climate-maker that transports warm air to northern latitudes in winter. Were that critical current to be slowed by the freshwater, let alone stopped, average winter temperatures in the Northeastern United States and in Western Europe could abruptly plummet 10 degrees - a change not experienced by anyone alive today. A five-degree drop would be in store for the rest of the States.

 

Exactly when it might occur, scientists generally are loath to speculate.

 

"None of us could tell you whether that event happens next year or 100 years from now," said Raymond W. Schmitt Jr., senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, which has taken the lead in studying the freshwater pool.

 

Researchers find themselves toeing a fine line between informing the public and setting off a panic, Schmitt added. The U.N. committee on global warming has put out the reassuring word that "such a shutdown is unlikely by 2100." But John Gagosian, head of Woods Hole, had not even cold comfort to offer in a recent paper.

 

"In just the past year, we have seen ominous signs that we may be headed toward a potentially dangerous threshold," Gagosian wrote. "If we cross it, Earth's climate could switch gears and jump very rapidly - not gradually - into a completely different mode of operation."

 

One climate scientist suspects the Gulf Stream already is slowing down. At a time when other glaciers around the world are in retreat, the Scandinavian glacier has been growing. Andrew Weaver, of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, says it may be the result of less warm air reaching that far corner of the North Atlantic.

 

The prospect of a deep freeze, whether sooner or later, so concerns the British government that it is sinking $30 million into figuring out what's going on in The Pond. For while no one disputes the freshening is real, no one is sure why it is happening.

 

Some researchers believe that, ironically, global warming could be to blame, that melting Greenland glaciers and Arctic sea ice could be diluting the salt water of the North Atlantic. Others theorize it could be a phase in a natural cycle, one that ice-core evidence suggests might have happened several times in the last 100,000 years - and perhaps as recently as America's colonial era.

 

Oceans are turbulent, chaotic places, and their circulation is at least as complex as the atmosphere's.

 

The Gulf Stream, which originates in the Caribbean, is no exception. Oceanographers typically describe it as part of a "conveyor belt," because in order to keep the current moving, the cold, salty water in the North Atlantic must sink beneath it. That creates a void that is filled by the rush of more Gulf Stream water. And so it moves north-northeast toward Iceland at about 5 m.p.h., warming the overlying atmosphere for more than 2,000 miles.

 

The heated air moderates the frigid blasts out of Canada before they can reach London, Paris or Rome. Without the Gulf Stream, London would feel like Montreal, but gloomier.

 

Fresher water is a threat to the conveyor because it is lighter and sinks so slowly that the Gulf Stream could sputter and even stop.

 

"If you don't sink that [cold] water and move it into the south, there's no reason for the Gulf Stream to move the warm water to the north," said James Wright, a Rutgers University paleoceanographer. The current "would turn toward Portugal and go to the Canary Islands."

 

Even subtle changes in salinity can have a substantial effect on the rate at which water sinks, said Weaver, of the University of Victoria. On average, a gallon of seawater contains 4.7 ounces of salt. Even the freshest water in the ocean still has about 4.2 ounces per gallon - far from potable, but fresh enough to potentially affect the Gulf Stream.

 

Conveyor-belt disruptions and sudden climate changes are nothing new - only the realization that they have occurred, says Richard B. Alley, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.

 

Conventional wisdom used to hold that climate change, like aging, happened gradually. In the last 15 years, however, researchers studying ice cores dating back 100,000 years have documented sudden shifts.

 

"Large, abrupt and widespread climate changes occurred repeatedly in the past across most of the Earth, and many followed closely after freshening of the North Atlantic," said Alley, who is also chairman of the National Research Council's Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, which published a report last spring.

 

Perhaps the most famous of these was the "Younger Dryas" event, so named for the Arctic shrub that appeared in temperate European climes during a dramatic cooldown about 12,000 years ago, 6,000 years after the last Ice Age. And it happened in a hurry, a matter of just a few years.

 

Changes in the Gulf Stream also are suspect in the onset of the so-called Little Ice Age, which began in the 15th century and ended about 1850. That coincided with Gen. George Washington's encampment at Valley Forge during the fatally frigid winter of 1777-78; the winter of 1779-80 was even worse. It also encompassed the era of Washington Irving and frosty images of skaters on the lower Hudson in December. No one skates there these days.

 

While abrupt shifts may be nothing new, this one would be unprecedented in one important respect: Science is trying to get to the bottom of it. But even as researchers measure the freshwater mass by dropping instrument packs into the ocean, one thing is certain: They won't be able to stop it.

 

Any human effort to control the buildup, Weaver said, would be "like one person standing on a railroad track trying to stop a train."

[Guest ISportsFan]

All I know is here in Illinois, it seems winter starts earlier pretty much every year.

 

Jason

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

The world is getting warmer on average. That is a fact.

 

Human pollution is the reason for Global Warming. That is a theory, and one that I'm not quite sure I believe in.

 

Pollution is bad (in far more ways than Global Warming), and we should do things (and we are for the most part) to help reduce it, but historical patterns suggest that we were ready for a warming period anyways, after the drop-off in the 19th Century.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

So is global warming the reason behind any extreme weather, like the ice storms in Mid-Atlantic?

 

I can't say Global Warming doesn't exist, but looking at the the records for Minnesota. Most if not all of the record high temperatures, and rainfall occured over 65 years ago. Did global warming exist 100 years ago, and scientist at the time didn't realize it.

[Guest DrTom]

Eric, the bit about the hole in the ozone being a natural fluctuation was in a book that I'd really have to dig for to find. However, ozone levels around the world do fluctuate naturally. It's not unreasonable for someone to report a normal drop in an OHMYGODWE'REALLGONNADIE kind of way, especially since the unwashed masses don't know that much about ozone. It's also naturally replenished by the sun (unless I really did sleep thru some college science courses), so I can't see it going anywhere. Remember, the scare science that started over the hole in the ozone basically said we'd all need SPF400 sunblock just to get thru the days now, and that's not even remotely close to happening.

 

Sciencentists have agendas, and their research and results will reflect those biases. There are still a lot of scientists who don't think global warming is an acceptable theory, and even some of the ones who do are hedging their bets in that Inquirer article a few posts up.

 

Pollution is certainly not a good thing, and we should always strive to treat the environment responsibly. But junk science trying to scare people into thinking we're all going to be extra crispy in two decades isn't going to accomplish anything, either.

[Guest DrTom]

Asbestos was an unfounded panic claim? Hmm, I think my dead grandfather would wheezingly disagree with you.

Well, let's see if there is a rebuttal for this, after all.

 

You're emotionally attached to your argument, one case does not an epidemic make, and anecdotal evidence doesn't really prove much.

 

The fact is, asbestos was supposed to be the Worst Thing In The World for a while. Breathing it's not especially good for you, but breathing anything that has airborne particles that can get into your lungs isn't good. A lot of people have made billions of dollars suing companies who used asbestos and harmed not one person in the process. In fact, asbestos was used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers. However, due to the scare that everyone in the buildings would die if they took a deep breath, it was only used on the first 32-36 floors. Asbestos is VERY fire retardent, and using it throughout the towers might have meant another hour or so before everything came crashing down.

 

Just something to think about.

[Guest Olympic Slam]

In fact, asbestos was used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers. However, due to the scare that everyone in the buildings would die if they took a deep breath, it was only used on the first 32-36 floors. Asbestos is VERY fire retardent, and using it throughout the towers might have meant another hour or so before everything came crashing down.

I've heard this as well and I'm glad someone brought it up.

 

 

When it comes to Global Warming, I think the best thing to do is think of ways to adapt to the possibility of a warmer world. Using it as a tool to blame the U.S (as usual), as a tool against business and as a tool to promote socialist agendas is counter productive. Remedies for pollution and what not will come about sooner or later, taking a few SUV's off the road wont solve much. Much like how people prepare for winter each year, the world should take the necessary steps needed to make living in a warmer world less of a burden than we're making it sound. I'm hoping for a new ice age personally, hockey becomes a more popular sport that way!

[Guest EricMM]

I think the best thing to do is think of ways to adapt to the possibility of a warmer world.

Another Genius idea our commander and chief has voiced.

 

As long as you all realize that as the oceans get warmer they will rise for two simple reasons 1) All the ice by the poles will melt 2) when water is warmer it takes up more volume.

 

When we had our last iceage, it was possible to walk from alaska to asia. You know this. Well if we continue warming our environment, FLORIDA will SUBMERGE. Along with other places like Venice, Floodplains like in China, and many other areas that have low sea levels. This is preventable simply by preventing global warming, but you and our president want to adapt?

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

The following is a post by Dr. Tim Patterson, Climatology professor at Carleton University. Sorry about the format problems, but it didn't paste very well.

 

-----------------------------------

 

Here is an interesting article from the Sunday

Telegraph in the UK that came across my desk yesterday.

We will be talking at length about climate models

later in the semester but in the meantime.... comments

anyone? ______________________ Predictions fall foul of

reality By Robert Matthews (Filed: 12/01/2003)

 

Commuters shivering in last week's bitterly cold

weather could be forgiven for wondering whatever

happened to global warming. The whole northern

hemisphere, from Florida to Finland, Germany to Japan,

was in the grip of a cold snap that seemed more in line

with a new Ice Age.

 

Aid agencies in Bangladesh handed out blankets to stem

the toll of cold-related deaths, which has already

topped 100. In Vietnam, baffled villagers came out to

study the inch-thick layer of odd, cold white stuff

that was blanketing the countryside. In China, a

700-mile stretch of the Yellow River turned to ice.

 

Advocates of global warming last week insisted that the

recent cold weather is just a blip that says nothing

about long-term climate change. Instead, they pointed

to the recent announcement that on a global scale 2002

was the second-hottest year ever recorded.

 

Yet in recent weeks information has emerged that is

sending an icy blast through the climate research

establishment. It shows that the Earth is refusing to

follow the script climatologists have written for it.

For more than a decade, scientists have been

developing sophisticated computer models of the Earth's

climate, in an attempt to forecast the impact of

alleged global warming. While these models differ in

their fine details, they all agree on one thing: that

global warming caused by man-made pollution should

strike the polar regions first.

 

Typically, the models predict that the level of warming

around the Poles should be about twice the global

average, causing large-scale melting of snow and ice -

with potentially devastating consequences for the

planet. With temperature records suggesting that the

warming began a century ago, the big melt-down should

now be well under way. Yet the latest research not only

fails to give any evidence for it, but points to the

exact opposite: a deepening of the polar freeze.

 

Last month a team led by Professor Igor Polyakov, of

the University of Alaska, published its study of

recently released weather records kept by Russian

scientists based in the Arctic from the 1870s onwards.

The results flatly contradict the computer models. They

show that - far from warming up faster than the rest of

the Earth - the Arctic has actually been cooling since

the 1920s. Put simply, say the researchers, "The air

temperature and ice data do not support the proposed

polar amplification of global warming."

 

In a report of their findings in the leading climate

research journal Eos, they conclude: "The Arctic poses

severe challenges to generating credible model-based

projections of climate change."

 

It is not only their temperature predictions that are

falling foul of reality. The 2001 report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - regarded as

the scientific consensus on global warming - predicts

that snowfall levels in the Northern Hemisphere should

decline as the planet warms up.

 

Yet new research by Canadian scientists shows that the

opposite is happening. Ice-core measurements made by a

team led by Dr Kent Moore, of the University of

Toronto, reveal that the amount of snow falling in the

Yukon region has not only failed to decline over the

past century as global warming theorists predict - it

has actually increased. In the journal Nature, the team

concludes: "We find a positive, accelerating trend in

snow accumulation after the middle of the nineteenth

century."

 

Other supposed signs of global warming are also failing

to fall into line with the computer predictions. Recent

studies of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, frequently

cited in scares about melting ice and global floods,

now suggest man-made global warming has had little

impact on it, and that it may actually be getting

thicker in some places.

 

A similar picture has emerged with icebergs, whose

increasing numbers have been taken as proof that global

warming is melting polar ice-sheets. New research

suggests that the trend is largely due to changes in

counting methods, and provides no good evidence of

global warming.

 

Despite these latest findings, most climate scientists

insist that man-made pollution must eventually make its

presence felt. Yet the repeated failure of their

computer models to match reality is becoming ever

harder to ignore - and raises grave doubts about the

wisdom of basing government policy on their

predictions.

[Guest So what? I liked bubble boy]

uhhhh, I used my microwave last night, Did I effect nature in anyway??? uh....

[Guest NoCalMike]

uhhhh, I used my microwave last night, Did I effect nature in anyway??? uh....

Way to use some intelligence in this thread. Keep up the good work....

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Forgive me for posting off-topic, but while on the topic of pollution-induced apocalyptic weather patterns, whatever happened to acid rain?