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Correct; to see this, take a look at the current sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly map, which shows the departure from normal temperatures (I think it's the average of 10 or so years from satellite data):
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnig ht.6.14.2007.gif

Notice the cool (blue anomaly) waters off of the coast of Peru. The water was warmer than normal last year (El Nino) and has now switched to a weak La Nina, which is supposedly favorable for Atlantic hurricane formation. However, currently there is a lot of shear in the Atlantic so not much has developed thus far.

Source/more information (and to see older maps from late last season) is available here:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html

Correct; to see this, take a look at the current sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly map, which shows the departure from normal temperatures (I think it's the average of 10 or so years from satellite data):
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnig ht.6.14.2007.gif

Notice the cool (blue anomaly) waters off of the coast of Peru. The water was warmer than normal last year (El Nino) and has now switched to a weak La Nina, which is supposedly favorable for Atlantic hurricane formation. However, currently there is a lot of shear in the Atlantic so not much has developed thus far.

Source/more information (and to see older maps from late last season) is available here:
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html

I work at NOAA, in the satellite group National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/

The US government regularly under-funds satellites & space systems. You can see this with the huge cost overruns on NPOESS http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive05/NPOESS_11 2105.html Why did NPOESS cost overruns happen? "Hey, lets do a contract on some incredibly experimental sensors involving high risk research and make sure they are on a fixed budget". Not smart.

I am off on a tangent though - Quickscat is a different story. Quickscat was a NASA R&D bird . See http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index. cfm I'm not clear whether it was initially launched as NASA only and handed off to us, or if they "owned" the satellite while we did the ground systems for it.

NASA does R&D type of satellites - proof of concepts, risk reduction, etc. We in NESDIS-NOAA often take over running them, or we run their sensors on our satellites. Well, these proof of concept satellites were never intended to be part of a series providing a continual new functionality.

NESDIS/NOAA has two major satellite series that will always (in the future) have spares for:
GOES series http://osd.goes.noaa.gov/
POES series http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poes/ (although the newest will be NPOESS via a joint program with DoD replacing our POES and DoD's DMSP)

There is another satellite that is likely to fall soon too - Windsat/Coriolis http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/Projects/windsat.html While Windsat is technically a Navy satellite, we run that one too, and it has no replacement either. Fortunately, Windsat is more about Navy stuff than it is about Hurricane tracking...

Bill Proenza, as a consumer of NESDIS' satellite data, sees NOAA efforts on the publicity side as being detrimental to the funding of the NOAA-NWS-National Hurricane center funding. Well, for the sake of accuracy, a few million dollars isn't going to fix our funding shortfalls...

Until Congress starts funding new satellite development properly (not like NPOESS) this problem won't go away.

I work at NOAA, in the satellite group National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/

The US government regularly under-funds satellites & space systems. You can see this with the huge cost overruns on NPOESS http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive05/NPOESS_11 2105.html Why did NPOESS cost overruns happen? "Hey, lets do a contract on some incredibly experimental sensors involving high risk research and make sure they are on a fixed budget". Not smart.

I am off on a tangent though - Quickscat is a different story. Quickscat was a NASA R&D bird . See http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index. cfm I'm not clear whether it was initially launched as NASA only and handed off to us, or if they "owned" the satellite while we did the ground systems for it.

NASA does R&D type of satellites - proof of concepts, risk reduction, etc. We in NESDIS-NOAA often take over running them, or we run their sensors on our satellites. Well, these proof of concept satellites were never intended to be part of a series providing a continual new functionality.

NESDIS/NOAA has two major satellite series that will always (in the future) have spares for:
GOES series http://osd.goes.noaa.gov/
POES series http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poes/ (although the newest will be NPOESS via a joint program with DoD replacing our POES and DoD's DMSP)

There is another satellite that is likely to fall soon too - Windsat/Coriolis http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/Projects/windsat.html While Windsat is technically a Navy satellite, we run that one too, and it has no replacement either. Fortunately, Windsat is more about Navy stuff than it is about Hurricane tracking...

Bill Proenza, as a consumer of NESDIS' satellite data, sees NOAA efforts on the publicity side as being detrimental to the funding of the NOAA-NWS-National Hurricane center funding. Well, for the sake of accuracy, a few million dollars isn't going to fix our funding shortfalls...

Until Congress starts funding new satellite development properly (not like NPOESS) this problem won't go away.

I work at NOAA, in the satellite group National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/

The US government regularly under-funds satellites & space systems. You can see this with the huge cost overruns on NPOESS http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive05/NPOESS_11 2105.html Why did NPOESS cost overruns happen? "Hey, lets do a contract on some incredibly experimental sensors involving high risk research and make sure they are on a fixed budget". Not smart.

I am off on a tangent though - Quickscat is a different story. Quickscat was a NASA R&D bird . See http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index. cfm I'm not clear whether it was initially launched as NASA only and handed off to us, or if they "owned" the satellite while we did the ground systems for it.

NASA does R&D type of satellites - proof of concepts, risk reduction, etc. We in NESDIS-NOAA often take over running them, or we run their sensors on our satellites. Well, these proof of concept satellites were never intended to be part of a series providing a continual new functionality.

NESDIS/NOAA has two major satellite series that will always (in the future) have spares for:
GOES series http://osd.goes.noaa.gov/
POES series http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poes/ (although the newest will be NPOESS via a joint program with DoD replacing our POES and DoD's DMSP)

There is another satellite that is likely to fall soon too - Windsat/Coriolis http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/Projects/windsat.html While Windsat is technically a Navy satellite, we run that one too, and it has no replacement either. Fortunately, Windsat is more about Navy stuff than it is about Hurricane tracking...

Bill Proenza, as a consumer of NESDIS' satellite data, sees NOAA efforts on the publicity side as being detrimental to the funding of the NOAA-NWS-National Hurricane center funding. Well, for the sake of accuracy, a few million dollars isn't going to fix our funding shortfalls...

Until Congress starts funding new satellite development properly (not like NPOESS) this problem won't go away.

I work at NOAA, in the satellite group National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/

The US government regularly under-funds satellites & space systems. You can see this with the huge cost overruns on NPOESS http://www.space.com/spacenews/archive05/NPOESS_11 2105.html Why did NPOESS cost overruns happen? "Hey, lets do a contract on some incredibly experimental sensors involving high risk research and make sure they are on a fixed budget". Not smart.

I am off on a tangent though - Quickscat is a different story. Quickscat was a NASA R&D bird . See http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/quikscat/index. cfm I'm not clear whether it was initially launched as NASA only and handed off to us, or if they "owned" the satellite while we did the ground systems for it.

NASA does R&D type of satellites - proof of concepts, risk reduction, etc. We in NESDIS-NOAA often take over running them, or we run their sensors on our satellites. Well, these proof of concept satellites were never intended to be part of a series providing a continual new functionality.

NESDIS/NOAA has two major satellite series that will always (in the future) have spares for:
GOES series http://osd.goes.noaa.gov/
POES series http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poes/ (although the newest will be NPOESS via a joint program with DoD replacing our POES and DoD's DMSP)

There is another satellite that is likely to fall soon too - Windsat/Coriolis http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/Projects/windsat.html While Windsat is technically a Navy satellite, we run that one too, and it has no replacement either. Fortunately, Windsat is more about Navy stuff than it is about Hurricane tracking...

Bill Proenza, as a consumer of NESDIS' satellite data, sees NOAA efforts on the publicity side as being detrimental to the funding of the NOAA-NWS-National Hurricane center funding. Well, for the sake of accuracy, a few million dollars isn't going to fix our funding shortfalls...

Until Congress starts funding new satellite development properly (not like NPOESS) this problem won't go away.

Lots more about QuickScat here:

http://manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/quikscat/

I would agree that the data from the satellite is used to predict the path of individual hurricanes. The season prediction probably wouldn't include real time wind speed data.

A few things here:

Firstly, I believe that when it is referring to hurricane forecasts, it is actually referring to hurricane tracking, not predicting the number of hurricanes in the upcoming season. A 16% decrease in the accuracy of hurricane forecasting therefore would result in meteorologists being less sure of the path that a hurricane would take. It's possible it's also referring to the prediction of a storm system being elevated to 'hurricane' status after forming a tropical storm/depression.

Even assuming I am completely wrong (that wouldn't be surprising) and the satellite will be use to help predict hurricane seasons, hopefully the replacement satellite will offer forecasters some new information to help in the future (Not every year's predictions are as off as the 2006 predictions, but if they were, I'd agree with you, a accurcy decreasing by 16% really won't make much of a difference.)

Secondly, while the 2006 hurricane season was grossly overstated and scientists really were predicting a record number of hurricanes, you can blame the media for creating a frenzy regarding the results. In any other year, the prediction might have gotten a mention on page 20 of a newspaper, or the science section of CNN.com, but after hurricane Katrina, media outlets jumped at the opportunity for more scaremongering. So I'd say, both are to blame.

One of the important things to realize is that he's not saying the acgency is necessarily underfunded, but that it has the money to easily replace the satellite but it is being used for PR instead.
It looks like they're predicting a record number of storms this year too..

A few things here:

Firstly, I believe that when it is referring to hurricane forecasts, it is actually referring to hurricane tracking, not predicting the number of hurricanes in the upcoming season. A 16% decrease in the accuracy of hurricane forecasting therefore would result in meteorologists being less sure of the path that a hurricane would take. It's possible it's also referring to the prediction of a storm system being elevated to 'hurricane' status after forming a tropical storm/depression.

Even assuming I am completely wrong (that wouldn't be surprising) and the satellite will be use to help predict hurricane seasons, hopefully the replacement satellite will offer forecasters some new information to help in the future (Not every year's predictions are as off as the 2006 predictions, but if they were, I'd agree with you, a accurcy decreasing by 16% really won't make much of a difference.)

Secondly, while the 2006 hurricane season was grossly overstated and scientists really were predicting a record number of hurricanes, you can blame the media for creating a frenzy regarding the results. In any other year, the prediction might have gotten a mention on page 20 of a newspaper, or the science section of CNN.com, but after hurricane Katrina, media outlets jumped at the opportunity for more scaremongering. So I'd say, both are to blame.

One of the important things to realize is that he's not saying the acgency is necessarily underfunded, but that it has the money to easily replace the satellite but it is being used for PR instead.
It looks like they're predicting a record number of storms this year too..

The predictions that the media reports do come from scientists -- generally either from the National Hurricane Center or Dr. William Gray at Colorado State University. An unexpected El Nino developed last year that caused the spring forecasts to be wrong. see http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2634.htm and http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2748.htm

The predictions that the media reports do come from scientists -- generally either from the National Hurricane Center or Dr. William Gray at Colorado State University. An unexpected El Nino developed last year that caused the spring forecasts to be wrong. see http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2634.htm and http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2748.htm

all I hear is the single point data, "last year was one degree warmer then the average", what is the variance? is this the fifth consecutive year above average?

The Noaa said that temperatures were continuing to rise by a fifth of a degree every decade. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1995.

Both data sets also show that the past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the contiguous U.S., a streak which is unprecedented in the historical record. [...] This reflects the long-term warming trend both in the U.S. and globally. U.S. and global annual temperatures are now approximately 1.0F warmer than at the start of the 20th century, and the rate of warming has accelerated over the past 30 years, increasing globally since the mid-1970's at a rate approximately three times faster than the century-scale trend.

Why don't you give us some facts instead of assertions with no evidence. Here are some facts: last year was an El Nino year, so disrupted weather patterns are to be expected. Secondly, last winter was unseasonably warm. In fact you might say, record highest temperatures warm. Who modded this insightful?!?

Why don't you give us some facts instead of assertions with no evidence. Here are some facts: last year was an El Nino year, so disrupted weather patterns are to be expected. Secondly, last winter was unseasonably warm. In fact you might say, record highest temperatures warm. Who modded this insightful?!?

We had an el nino last year which tends to reduce the number and severity of hurricanes.

Or so this "they" guy says...read it on the intartubes

The deal with hurricanes isn't so much they are stronger or more of them as hundreds or thousands of years ago as much as we have much better news reporting and data keeping now and even moreso, hoo-mannz have been on a coastal area expensive building spree for the past few decades in the US, so when hurricanes *do* strike, it causes a lot more damage. Example, a little cottage I used to live it on the beach in florida, back when that was still possible at ridiculous cheap joe construction worker wage levels is now a big high rise. Where a few people used to live (and I went through a hurricane there actually) and a structure worth x-dollars might have been damaged, (it wasn't, 'cane that didn't hit directly but was sure *exciting* for yours truly)now a lot more people and x times 500 (whatever, big number) dollars worth of stuff is there that could be damaged. I don't know a technical term for it, but the event impact potential threshold is now way higher than it used to be, given the same exact size hurricane.

There's actually a lot of research indicating most whale populations are increasing, or have reached their natural limit. In other words, this hunt is a curiousity because of the previous portion of spear found, but shouldn't be a concern or rallying point to press for changes in cultural heritage to "save" the population.

Why would you use the Weather Channel? The NOAA is where it's at.

Here? on slash dot?
Ya.. I have the info. And the rising deserters against your myths.
But..again..here in marxist land of slashdot, it will just get shouted down.
Here's something for you to chew on tho.
As you you TARDs are whining, wringing your paws, and calling CO2 such an evil gas.
Tell me..

1) Explain how 'any' ice age period ended.
2) Explain the Medevial warming period.
3) Explain the DROP in C02 during the rise of post WWII industrialization.
4) Explain the Sun's role in GW.
5) Explain the impact of C02 in relationship to all other gases in the atmosphere and justify the reduction of C02.

Additionally:
Dont forget his lil SCAM regarding 'carbon credits'.
You know..that SCAM that does nothing but create a BS economy to 'buy and sell' liberal 'feel good about myself' junk.
Hmmm.. I wonder how many credits will be available..
Afterall, we are talking about a gas that IS 1/3RD OF ONE PERCENT of the atmosphere..of which humans are 5% responsible of that 1/3rd of one percent.

Basically 'human C02' is less than one-tenth of one percent of the total atmospheric gasses. And that tiny amount WILL KILL US ALL!!!
(Remember, you have be a 'tard to listen to the Gore and the media..)

Mehh..I'm not worried, I'm sure they will 'invent' another crisis based on another NATURAL gas that is at least 1.5% of the atmosphere that we can all panic about...

For any tree hugging deniers..
Straight from NOAA
"Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring, colorless, odorless gas that makes up less than one-tenth of one percent of the Earth's atmosphere."
http://celebrating200years.noaa.gov/datasets/mauna /welcome.html

I could go on..but I dont expect you to take up this challenge anyway.
You'll just point to your 'consensus' of scientist. No matter that these 'scientists' are socialogist, entomologists, and palm readers. (You DID see the IPCC list didnt you?)

Bahhh..
Face it buddy.. Your still a libtard however you cut it..

And yet, passenger cars in the US contribute to 18% of US CO2 emissions, while in the EU, they only account for 12% of total CO2 emissions. Maybe the fact that Europeans drive less than Americans would explain their different priorities. Perhaps their cars may emit more smog and carbon-monoxide per liter of fuel, and still, because of their lighter weight, still get better gas mileage, and emit less carbon-dioxide. (But that's just a guess.)

http://www.bnl.gov/rideshare/benefits.asp
http://www.transportenvironment.org/Downloads-req- getit-lid-29.html

You may want to check out a more reputable website for your information. Your "pop" quiz is incorrect about the satellite data, which _does_ show warming trends, and is misleading about the greenhouse effect and the significance of the _rapid_ change in global average temperatures. To clarify, if it took a thousand years instead of twenty years for the recent increase in temperature, there would be a very different reaction.

The many, many, many studies done around the world show that there is a recent, rapid increase in global temperature, and that it is linked to human activities, and, in a single lifetime, left uncorrected, will cause great amounts of worldwide suffering. Also, we can mitigate the effects with substantial and early corrective actions.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming. html#Q1

We're talking about trade policy, and, wow, you managed to work in global warming, "the media" and George Soros. I salute you, winger.

Anyhoo.. you're totally wrong, or at least, at odds with the facts, since facts, truth, and debate in general occupy some fuzzy, extracranial space for people like you. The European Union numbers 500 million, or 2/3 larger than Am'rca, so there would most certainly be people to buy the damn imports. Europe's trade deficit with China is close to that of the United States, as you will find in this report by the Congressional Research Service dated January 4 of this year. Or you could just Google "china trade balance" and read the first 60 or so things that come up, it's all there.

Which brings me to what really tickles me pink about you, and others like you, viz. where do you get off being so self-righteous when you've obviously spent so little time actually reading primary source material and forming your own thoughts? Bill O'Reilly's talking points do not an argument make. Take that whole diatribe in the middle there, about global warming. Literally every point you make has been thoroughly refuted, and I'm not talking in a polemic, debatable fashion--you can go look these things up for yourself, and anyone who takes the time to do so (as I have) has to admit what you're saying is bunk. The 1970s Ice Age "consensus" consists of about 20 publications, almost all of them in the popular (not scientific) press. The notion that the medieval warm period compares to what we're seeing now is flat wrong. Solar radiation has been constant for the last 30 years, during which time the most significant warming has been recorded, so no correlation there. There is scant evidence that Mars is warming, and even if it is, human activity is a much more convincing explanation for our own warming. Etc. etc. etc.

That's not to say that convincing counterarguments to the anthropogenic warming hypothesis cannot be made, but these are not those, and you do not know them. Your slavish repetition of these canards makes it clear that you're not in the game for any sort of self-enlightenment, or desire to get at the truth, but simply to score points and massage your bruised ego by screaming at the George Soroses of the world. You're shouting at cars. Why? A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

I'm talking about stuff that I can see. It blows my mind that so many here dispute it. Is there no such obvious change in America?

Yes, the US has been warming, but the rate of temperature increase in the 48 continguous states of the US has been significantly slower than for Europe. In Alaska it's the reverse situation. And of course in Hawaii the climate continues to be perfect >99% of the time.

This really does make it harder for people in the US to consider global warming a serious issue. I think the same would be true in Europe (or South Africa) were the positions exchanged.

Temperatures, 1895-2006.

Precipitation (for good measure)

I'm talking about stuff that I can see. It blows my mind that so many here dispute it. Is there no such obvious change in America?

Yes, the US has been warming, but the rate of temperature increase in the 48 continguous states of the US has been significantly slower than for Europe. In Alaska it's the reverse situation. And of course in Hawaii the climate continues to be perfect >99% of the time.

This really does make it harder for people in the US to consider global warming a serious issue. I think the same would be true in Europe (or South Africa) were the positions exchanged.

Temperatures, 1895-2006.

Precipitation (for good measure)

"Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences."

First, see Growing number of scientists reconsidering global warming fears. Not the best site ever, but it shows that the consensus everyone likes to talk about is bogus. The _media_ refuses to let allow the discussion to continue and the scientific process run its course without interference.

On Drudge, right now, there is an article saying with the headline, WARMING ON HOLD? April's temperatures were below average.... That right there prove the point that the media has DESTROYED any chance we have at a honest examination of the issue. People see that headline and think, "Maybe this global warming thing is bogus," but that article literally has 0 relevance to global warming. People think it does though because they do not care to think for themselves and believe what everyone else tells them. Sheep, they are sheep. It has been said a million times here, but is true. If you read that headline and draw any correlation to global warming from it, you have no place in any discussion about the topic.

Why? Well it is because they cannot grasp the concept of global warming if that headline/article does anything but anger them about the issue of global warming. Global warming is better referred to as Climate Change. A cold month means nothing, NOTHING, in the grand scheme of things, and that is the point. The grand scheme of things. It is all about averages I guess you can say. People cannot grasp the idea of the climate, let alone what any change in the climate means. Instead, they read a headline/story, not knowing anything about the subject, form an opinion(the one the media likely tells them to form), and parade around as if they have even the slightest clue on the subject, but they do not.

Stop telling me there is a firm and ever-growing body of evidence, because there isn't. There is just a slew of weak minded people buying into the hysteria that you are contributing to with your article. Thanks again for the awesome journalism mass media, you never cease to amaze.

Unfortunately, no. Hurricanes are way too big and generate way too much energy for us to have an effect. This [noaa.gov] will answer all of your questions about trying to destroy hurricanes.

Thanks. In one of your linked article's FAQ answers, I found this very relevant quote from the NAS's conclusions from 1985:

Assuming that this article doesn't outline an Achilles heel for hurricanes, there really is no way to stop them. From NOAA:

To change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add about a half ton of air for each square meter inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius eye. It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around.

Unfortunately, no. Hurricanes are way too big and generate way too much energy for us to have an effect.

This will answer all of your questions about trying to destroy hurricanes.

There was an article in Scientific American about a year or so ago that had a cover story about this. The authors posited that if we had accurate enough forecasts, we could modify the initial conditions (through some sort of perturbation) before the storm even started, and get it to, for instance, form over the open sea instead of over land.

But such forecasts are probably not possible for, say, 50 years at least, and that assumes we have much, much better observational data than we do today (and of course Moore's Law holds true, or something like it).

I have one simple question about this whole 'Global Warming will kill us all and is the work of the devil' debate.

What's the right temperature?

Was it when we had sheets of ice covering 50% of the earth's surface? Was it when Vikings were setting up farming communities on Iceland?

The Vostok ice core seems to show a cyclical C02 level, with spikes at approximately 400 thousand years ago, 325 thousand years ago, 225 thousand years ago, 125 thousand years ago, and one that we're in the middle of. When compared with these time scales, looking at levels in times we can directly measure is as useless as picking a random 1 minute period to watch the stock market, and using that to predict market trends for the next 20 years. We cannot demonstrate that industry is causing this 'problem' because, not only do we have no direct readings from before industry, we don't actually know that there's a problem. This could easily be all natural.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok_data.html
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/vostok.c o2.gif

There hasn't been "dead silence" about Mars. I've heard about it a lot. A whole lot.

We don't have to rely on Mars to get data about solar energy flux over the last >25 years. We have direct satellite measurements of solar output. Check it out.

If we didn't have satellite data, we would want to check our natural satellite for solar-induced temperature changes. Unlike Mars, the moon doesn't have abedo changes like Mars does.

>the predictions of the climate models have been very, very poor

They've underestimated the amount of rise in sea level, true.

>CO2 rises lag warm periods

It's a positive feedback system, warmth brings out more CO2. The effect of CO2 and other "greenhouse" gases is simple physics, not climatology. Apply thermodynamics to the earth without the effect of a warming atmosphere and you would get a global average temperature about 30 Celsius lower than we've actually got. CO2, methane, and (here's where things get so complicated you need supercomputers) water vapor are the reasons the oceans aren't frozen over.

There are still big uncertainties about a system with multiple coupled feedback loops on different time scales, but the remaining uncertainties are how much, how fast, and how serious the effects will be.

From the article you quoted,
>>the global cooling hysteria of the 1970s.
This claim is like a Terminator, it just keeps coming back no matter how many times someone posts the bibliography of climate articles from the 1970s.

Vostok ice core data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok.html
CO2 concentrations over the last 600000 years: http://www.realclimate.org/epica.jpg

Sadly, I can't find the graph that superposes the temperature record over the CO2 record. I'm sure another 30 minutes of googling for it will yield it.

The spike is over the last 150 years or so, and basic modeling techniques show you that it is abnormal. All your questions can be answered by looking through the two graphs I provided you.

Alright, I exaggerated when I said that our CO2 output dwarfs all natural emissions. You're right, that's probably wrong. However, our emissions are currently not being absorbed as fast as they are generated, and total concentrations are rising quite nicely. That's the key part - we are putting stuff into the regular cycle that doesn't get absorbed.

I know you don't think that it's affecting the earth. You still haven't given a reason why, despite the well known physics of infrared absorption, which are described quite nicely here: http://teaching.shu.ac.uk/hwb/chemistry/tutorials/ molspec/irspec1.htm
The data about CO2 affecting infrared radiation from earth can be found here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142, and at the Wikipedia article about greenhouse gases. If you object to the sources, you can always check the referenced literature.

I've got plenty of data. I can pull data for days. Where's yours? Where's your peer reviewed article? All you have is a few people who had to get a BBC documentary made, because people kept laughing at their theories and wouldn't bother publishing their papers. BTW, I've seen the BBC documentary - the data referenced in there, as well as the analysis thereof, has been widely discredited. For something real, read the IPCC reports: start here (http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/pub.htm), and don't stop until the end. Then come back.

Oh, and just for the heck of it, because I like Woods Hole and a friend of mine worked there, here's a little summary they threw together about the CO2 data collected: http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/ warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm

Again - where's your data?

On this overview of the Wolf number for sunspot activity in the past half century, it doens't seem to be too bad. Moreover, the last maximum in 2000 (we are in a minimum of solar activity right now) was around 120, compared to an average maximum in 17xx around 100.

An additional problem is that before 1700 there was no unified way of recording sunspot information.

The highest point in Florida according to this page is Britton Hill, at 345 Ft. According to this page the highest city is 500 feet. The average elevation of the entire state is 100 feet.

From the Army Corps of Engineers: hot topic

The Herbert Hoover Dike was built in the 1930s to hold back water draining from lands within the watershed. The dike was built in accordance with the accepted engineering standards of the day. Today we have an improved understanding of how the materials with which the dike was built react to changing environmental conditions and water levels. Accepted construction standards for today are more stringent than those of 70 years ago. Recent analysis shows that if water levels in Lake Okeechobee fluctuate to very high and/or very low levels, the integrity of the dike may be compromised. Integrity is reduced as water seeps under the earthen sides of the dam.

Today the lake is at 10.166 Feet above NGVD29. Historically, the elevation of this fourth largest lake inside the US has been as little as 10 feet above NGVD29 (mean sea level as measured in 1929). Review the part above about "very low levels" again.

From Wikipedia:

Okeechobee is said to have been formed out of the ocean about 6,000 years ago when the waters receded.

The greatest potential for loss of life related to a hurricane is from the storm surge, which historically has claimed nine of ten victims. Storm surge is simply water that is pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds swirling around the storm. This advancing surge combines with the normal tides to create the hurricane storm tide, which can increase the mean water level 15 feet or more.

Now do the math. Even if your "one foot in the next 50 years" is accurate, one foot is very significant when high tide and storm surge is already enough to put a 150 mile wide swath of your home state under seven feet of seawater. The numbers I've been reading are not one foot. I'm hearing a meter or two. At that rate one good hurricane could remove the part of southern florida that survives from the mainland entirely. None of this considers an Atlantic Tsunami, which has happened and is predicted to happen again and would just wash right over central florida barely slowing down.

If you're reading this from south Florida, you should consider carefully your choice to stay where you are.

James Carville used to remind Clinton during the '92 campaign that "its the economy, stupid".

I (and many others far smarter than I am) say that on the subject of Global Warming: "its the SUN, stupid"

Our earth is warmed by a gigantic nuclear fireball, millions of times the mass of earth and a mere 8.5 light-minutes away. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths.

By the way, the sun has a total luminosity output of 386 YottaWatts thats 386,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 watts, but we only get a tiny portion of that.

You can't just ignore that kind of power. But a lot of researchers do, and simply dismiss our solar irradiance and it's variability out of hand. It muddles up the GHG modeling study they are doing when you throw extra energy into the system.

The total luminous energy output (visible, IR) received by earth from the sun is 174 PETAWATTS (174,000,000,000,000,000) watts. Now lets just say the sun increases its output by 0.1% as its been measured to do. (And its gotten way more active this century.) That dumps an extra 174,000,000,000,000 watts into our atmosphere (174 trillion watts) 24/7.

See the plot of Solar Irradiance from NOAA data here
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.g if

Data source for graph: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_f orcing/solar_variability/lean2000_irradiance.txt

Note: In the graph above, the low flatline from 1645-1715 is the Maunder Minimum, a period of virtually no sunspots, where the historical reports from the northern hemisphere tell a story of dramatic climate change: harsh winters, cools summers, crop failures, famine and disease.

Now lets put 174 trillion watts into perspective:

Hurricanes: the heat energy released by a hurricanes category 1-5 equals about 50 to 200 trillion watts or about the same amount of energy released by exploding a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes.

Katrina, released about 200 trillion watts over its life cycle.

Now imagine that approximate amount of extra energy being added to earth's atmosphere every second by small increases in the suns output that have been documented to exist.

Now lets look at us: 13.5 TeraWatts is the average total power consumption of the human world in 2001.

Do you think we could change the planets atmospheric energy balance with that if we squeezed all the power we made that year together and shot it into our atmosphere ?

Yeah, its the sun, stupid.

James Carville used to remind Clinton during the '92 campaign that "its the economy, stupid".

I (and many others far smarter than I am) say that on the subject of Global Warming: "its the SUN, stupid"

Our earth is warmed by a gigantic nuclear fireball, millions of times the mass of earth and a mere 8.5 light-minutes away. One hundred and nine Earths would be required to fit across the Sun's disk, and its interior could hold over 1.3 million Earths.

By the way, the sun has a total luminosity output of 386 YottaWatts thats 386,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 watts, but we only get a tiny portion of that.

You can't just ignore that kind of power. But a lot of researchers do, and simply dismiss our solar irradiance and it's variability out of hand. It muddles up the GHG modeling study they are doing when you throw extra energy into the system.

The total luminous energy output (visible, IR) received by earth from the sun is 174 PETAWATTS (174,000,000,000,000,000) watts. Now lets just say the sun increases its output by 0.1% as its been measured to do. (And its gotten way more active this century.) That dumps an extra 174,000,000,000,000 watts into our atmosphere (174 trillion watts) 24/7.

See the plot of Solar Irradiance from NOAA data here
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.g if

Data source for graph: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/climate_f orcing/solar_variability/lean2000_irradiance.txt

Note: In the graph above, the low flatline from 1645-1715 is the Maunder Minimum, a period of virtually no sunspots, where the historical reports from the northern hemisphere tell a story of dramatic climate change: harsh winters, cools summers, crop failures, famine and disease.

Now lets put 174 trillion watts into perspective:

Hurricanes: the heat energy released by a hurricanes category 1-5 equals about 50 to 200 trillion watts or about the same amount of energy released by exploding a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes.

Katrina, released about 200 trillion watts over its life cycle.

Now imagine that approximate amount of extra energy being added to earth's atmosphere every second by small increases in the suns output that have been documented to exist.

Now lets look at us: 13.5 TeraWatts is the average total power consumption of the human world in 2001.

Do you think we could change the planets atmospheric energy balance with that if we squeezed all the power we made that year together and shot it into our atmosphere ?

Yeah, its the sun, stupid.

First solar flux increases the direct amount of watervapor in the air. Currently, the models only account for this in the stratosphere and not the troposphere.
I am fascinated by folks who state as fact that professional climate modelers can't put in something as simple as relative humidity in their models. None of the dozens of modeling teams in the world can quite figure it out. And then to crown their display of ignorance, they offer up the old canard of "the sun did it." We have been accurately measuring the output of the sun for about 50 years, and there is not trend in its output. This is a graph of the last 30 or so years. If the output of the sun is not changing, it can't account for our current warming.

Here's what the sun has been doing since we first got accurate exo-atmospheric measurements:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/IRRADIANCE/irra d.html

Yep! Feel the Love of the Glory of all which is Slashdot...

Shoot-the-Messengers: 40% Interesting, 40% Overrated, 10% Troll High Score 3, now down to 1.

"Yes, a small number of cranks were pushing the global cooling story,..." Time Magazine, 24 June 1974

Remember how we all stopped using chlorofluorocarbons? And suddenly a 50 to 140 year lifetime pollutant has dissappeared in the 9 years since 1996.

The ice age ended and people moved: OK, that works for a few thousand cavemen. Now do it with a billion. Pity. Venice has been sinking into the sea for 300 years, and now when it rains, thousands of bodies clog the canals.

Warmer == more plant growth == more CO2 vs Plants absorbing CO2. Yep, you got me there -- I stated that very poorly. My Bad. Should have said:
Warmer == more life growth (even in the Sahara until the rains stop) == more CO2.

C02 vs CO2 --- Style note: Always include a trivial typo in potentially emotional arguments so the emo grammarians can take the bait. Nobody complained about "Therer", but it took dozens of posts to catch the Plants-Produce-CO2 mismatch. Be careful the next time you jump on the trivial and miss the fundamental.

The temperature and CO2 traces match! OK, they're similar. That doesn't mean one caused the other. I also don't see any comparisons to other influences, such as Oxygen levels or Solar activity.

The TV Show -- Funny, I didn't see any counter arguments for the political side of things, much less the other climate correlations displayed. I mentioned the show last because it supported my existing claims, not that I make claims based on it.

Oh, is it a good thing that professional politicians can expound on climate without an Atmospheric Science degree but critics are dismissed because -- oh, never mind...

Weather radar has been known to pick up objects like bats and the shuttle Columbia disaster

as seen here: http://www.etl.noaa.gov/about/eo/science/convectio n/RBCells.html Not sure how the rotation affects/interacts with those.

"So will an increase in sunspot activity affect us?"

I'm not a climatologist, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. That said, I tend to doubt one slightly higher than average solar cycle maximum is going to have an noticeable effect on climate.

What's more interesting, to me, is the behavior over multiple cycles. For instance, a long-term disappearance of sunspots in the 17th century corresponded with the Little Ice Age:

http://www.ucar.edu/research/sun/climate.jsp

If you look at the cycles of the past century or so, the predicted cycle 24 peak isn't really all that impressive compared to those of the past 60 years.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/144063main_Pred ictionPlotLG.jpg

However, comparing cycles 12-16 to subsequent cycles is interesting. The sun does seem to have become more active in general. Has this had a global effect? More importantly, if there has been a global effect, is it detectable against local effects on climate? Keep in mind that even the Little Ice Age was largely regional.

Oblig. links:

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/Education/index.html
http://www.ucar.edu/research/sun/
http://spaceweather.com/
http://www.spacew.com/

I see 6 scenarios presented ranging from 1.8 to 4.0 degrees C. Once again, the range between estimates is greater than the smaller estimate. Also, after spending a while chasing down something that everything references but nothing states, I found the mean annual global temperature and according to that, it is 13.9 degrees C. So, our best, most refined estimates give us a guess off a 13% to 38% increase in temperature. a 25% margin of error is scientifically acceptable as precise? Now, I just read through the summary, I didn't read the full report since I need to get out of here to go fix my sister's car... can you please point to me which model they used in 1997 to predict exactly where we were in 97-2007 as I asked or does the data not exist because our past projections were all wrong?

Instead, like creationists, they go to laymen and the media - two areas completely irrelevant to genuine scientific debate. Scientific debate happens in the peer-reviewed arenas. That GW deniers refuse to step foot in those arenas is indicative of the fact that they have no supportive research and their criticisms of the climate science aren't made on scientific grounds, but on specious ones.

You mean like creating a documentary, featuring a prominent politician that failed geology, which focused on one particular variable? Then putting said documentary in the cinemas, trying to get schools to show it, etc? How about the media creating movies like "The Day After Tomorrow?" Calling for any meteorologist who disagrees with the current thought to be stripped of their credentials? You're right... the AGW people are just like the creationists.

A number of models have, like the ones I mentioned previously. The fact that you don't even mention them to rebut them indicates how disinterested you are in the evidence.

You'll have to excuse me for being a moron here because I can't find this model you reference that I asked for. Point me exactly to the model that predicted 10 years accurately in the future that we can verify. This hypothetical model that was run in 1997 that predicted our climate within a 5% margin of error for each year of 1997. 1998 ... 2006. Not a model that predicts backwards, a model which predicts forward that has been shown to be accurate.

Skeptic is not the word for what you are - a skeptic is someone who refrains from reaching a conclusion until after he's sought out the data that would speak to it. But the fact that you'd rather waste my time talking about baseball, and mythical stories of computer switches, and Mormonism, and Pop Tarts, makes it clear that denial is what you're interested in, which is why I continue to use that term.

I don't have a conclusion here... I think there are idiots on both sides and I'm waiting for verifiable proof to be shown from either side. One side is holding up a theory but they don't want it criticized and refuse to validate it. The other side just wants to poke holes in the theory. Excuse me for not believing people who result to ad hominems rather than admit there are problems with their theory instead of just proving the theory once and for all. As for baseball, the magic switch, laboratory testing vs the real world, etc, it all ties into how the theories proposed by the AGW group are flawed because of how little we actually know and can prove. Can you imagine a physicist going "I can state with 66-90% confidence that the force of gravity must be somewhere between 8.58m/s^2 and 11.03m/s^2?" They're right, it is somewhere in there... but their methodology is crap and is probably even reproducible in another lab. Maybe they didn't think to test it in a vacuum to factor out air resistance.

Ummm, yeah... Assuming the WORST case estimates over the last 40 years that CO2, methane, and NOx have doubled it still accounts for less than 0.036% of the Earth's atmosphere. Which means it went from 0.018% to 0.036%. Equivalent to a $0.18 change in a $1,000 bill.

[The] sun is currently at its lowest output of total solar irradience in its 11 year cycle- and coincidentally the lowest in 30+ years despite a theoretical long term trend towards higher average solar output.

While it is true that the sun is now at a minimum, it was at a MAXIMUM by 2001. Coincidentally, the temperatures peaked during the 1990s, and are starting to decline. Maybe that Mr. Fusion in the sky does have a significant impact?

"Huge atmospheric composition changes" - this is the EXACT hyperbole the original article was talking about...

But let's pretend you had been right - why would the max. temperature be in the 1990s when the MAXIMUM solar output was 2001? ARe you even trying to make sense?

Zonk, you've linked to the report on crop loss owing to warming to the warmest winter citation.

Here is the CNN report http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/03/15/warmest.wint er.reut/index.html?eref=rss_topstories and NOAA link giving state by state rankings for temperture and precipitaion http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2819.htm .

The link you posted is actually more interesting since it suggests that efforts to substitute biofuels for fossil fuels could be hampered by warming since crop losses from warming already exceed $100 billion in the US between 1981 and 2002 http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Sci ence&article=UPI-1-20070316-15391700-bc-us-climate change-crops.xml

I'll try to keep my submisions down to less than one a day, there was just a confluence of news.

The U.S. had a normal winter.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/ feb/feb07.html

This is the kind of loose cannon crap that they are talking about.

"Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic," predicted James Lovelock, a renowned environmental scientist.

That is the kind of overblown, the world is ending crap they are talking about.

Ummm, yeah... Assuming the WORST case estimates over the last 40 years that CO2, methane, and NOx have doubled it still accounts for less than 0.036% of the Earth's atmosphere. Which means it went from 0.018% to 0.036%. Equivalent to a $0.18 change in a $1,000 bill.

[The] sun is currently at its lowest output of total solar irradience in its 11 year cycle- and coincidentally the lowest in 30+ years despite a theoretical long term trend towards higher average solar output.

While it is true that the sun is now at a minimum, it was at a MAXIMUM by 2001. Coincidentally, the temperatures peaked during the 1990s, and are starting to decline. Maybe that Mr. Fusion in the sky does have a significant impact?

"Huge atmospheric composition changes" - this is the EXACT hyperbole the original article was talking about...

How was this the warmest winter? The December to February temperature was near average and February 2007 was in the bottom 2/3rds in temperature over the past 113 years.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/ feb/feb07.html

From NOAA:

"The December 2006-February 2007 winter season temperature was marked by periods of unusually warm and cold conditions in the U.S., but the overall seasonal temperature was near average, according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C." (emphasis added)

Warmest winter in the US? The second link does not make that statement. World, yes. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2819.htm

Since 1978, we've had direct satellite measurements of solar intensity.

Mars is cooler today than it was during the 1970s Viking missions.

A shrinking polar cap is local warming, not global warming, and did you notice what season it is on Mars?

Why do people repeat Fox News instead of looking for themselves?

Have not tried it:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge/kmzgenerator.php

(I knew that had georef images, but I didn't know they had this)