Eastern US Cooling Despite Global Warming

[Tex] writes "While the rest of the world swelters, i'll be nice and cool...this article from NASA describes a general cooling trend over the Eastern US due to global warming. Warmer waters in the Pacific have created increased cloud cover on this side of the states, resulting in lower temperatures. Jeff Goldblum could probably explain this better... :)"

Comments

Re:Theory?

[Black Parrot]

> I don't know enough about global warming to either agree or disagree with the theory.

Me neither. But I have seen the plots showing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 10K years, and the spike starting with the Industrial Revolution is a bit hard to ignore. It cannot be doubted that we've changed our planet's atmosphere significantly.

What the result of that is, if anything, is another matter. But since current theory holds that the current surface conditions on both Mars and Venus are the results of runaway systems, I think letting ours get out of balance is probably not a very good risk for our species to take. At least until we have self-sustaining colonies on other planets.

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Re:You mean this plot?

[Black Parrot]

> Memories can be hazy. You mean this little graph over here?

No, not the same chart. The one I saw was flat for about 9.8 Kyear, and then shot up on what looked like an exponential curve.

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Re:Theory?

[SEWilco]

Maybe he saw a partial plot of the first chart here, but one which started 10,000 years ago because there was an ice age 15,000 years ago. Global cooling kind of messes up global warming charts, as things warmed up without humans. Right now we're as warm as 120,000 years ago.

Note that previous page of that site mentions that weathering of silicate rocks uses carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Also, the geological carbon cycle has 1,800 times more carbon than the atmosphere. Our climate has a lot more variation than our last thousand years. Well, maybe you'd rather just look at the last 300 years, if the Little Ice Age messes up your statistics. Or the last 30 years, as some have used, because the 1960s had an unusually cold winter and so makes "warmer" easier to show. And please do ignore that we've stopped the prairie fires that used to cover the central plains of North America.

Note that the main greenhouse gas is water vapor which is just a wee bit hard to measure and control. And we can only hope that we don't see another Iceball Earth.

Theory?

[Gen-GNU]

Wait! Hold the presses! Global warming is a theory?
</SARCASM>

It is important to remember that global warming is, in fact, a theory. When I see a report saying, in essence "I know that what your seeing appears to be contrary to my theory, but here's why it is actually helping", I immediatly wonder at the motives of such a statement. This research appears to be done by people who support the global warming theory. As such, it's results are biased towards proving that theory.

I don't know enough about global warming to either agree or disagree with the theory. I do know enough about human nature to distrust this report.

Re:Theory?

[RedWizzard]

I notice that dispite your generally sarcastic description of global warming data that first page you mentioned states:

Historical evidence and what we know about the Earth's energy balance and the Earth's atmosphere point to an increased greenhouse effect caused by people.

Re:Another Explanation

[RedWizzard]

Now you've gone and done it. It's Politically Incorrect to question the dogma of Global Warming. They keep massaging the stats, taking a trendline from the bottom of one solar cycle to the top of another, and repeating the GW mantra that any changes must be the result of Evil Human Technology.

What if you, and the other doubters are wrong? Just how extreme do the changes have to be before you believe it's a fact? In 10 years time will the doubters be saying "but Earth was this temperature 1.5 million years ago" instead of the current "Earth had this temperature 200,000 years ago"? What if you do realise it's a problem in 5 years time and it's too late because a bunch of positive feedback loops have been discovered?

Re:You mean this plot?

[RedWizzard]

Here is an article pointing out that the sun activity correlation fails to account for all of the warming that has occured since 1985. Note that one of the researchers involved in the original work referenced in the parent co-authored this new finding.

Re:Global warming -> local cooling?

[Cspine]

Wrong conclusion.

The article said that there has been a trend of global temperature increases. The fact that the eastern US is cooling is merely an effect of the global climate changes.

That is, the fact that there is more cloud cover is usually an indication of higher rates of evaporation, i.e. higher temperatures.

So basically this articles doesn't really mean anything accept to confirm the global warming theory.

Re:Another Explanation

[Black Parrot]

> Global warming causing local cooling?

Actually, there's some concern that global warming may trigger another ice age.

Global warming --> Greenland ice starts melting --> cold water runs into North Atlantic --> Gulf Stream shuts down --> Europe freezes --> more sunlight reflected into space rather than absorbed --> new ice age.

Or something like that.

> Al Gore blamed increased blizzards on global warming. Now global warming is being blamed for cooler temperatures? No.

Global *, where * = climatic change of any type, will show up first as disruptions of traditional local patterns. Some places will get *++, others will get *--. Deal with it. And buy an all-weather wardrobe before the prices go up.

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