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Human Activity to Blame For 2003 Heatwave
Dirak writes "The temperatures of the summer of 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years. New research shows how human influence, mainly fossil fuel burning, can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave and by the middle of this century every other summer could be even hotter than 2003."
This research has some serious flaws. It is essentially based on information for a single summer, the other information presented even contradicts the conclusions it draws. The estimations on temperature growth are not really supported by anything - I think it was written to grab headlines.
You might want to read though it and draw your own conclusions before you buy into the media hype.
The August 14, 2003 blackout on the U.S. East coast was due to a heat wave that caused the electrical system to be overloaded by too many air conditioners. Once that hit there was a drop in hydrocarbon emmisions fast.
what summer heatwave? on my holidays this year it rained so hard the village where we were staying was was washed into the sea!
seriously tho - i live in a place that is so unnacustomed to snow, that when it finally does get around to snowing it makes the front page of the local newspaper. my daughter said to me the other day "dad, remember when it snowed three years ago, there was enough snow for us to make a snowman!". and i can remember building snow forts as a boy. the weather is seriously messed up, we don't need science to tell us that it is.
It could be used to establish liability - just like the research into smoking causing cancer; before there was good research the tobacco companies could avoid liability (even though they knew fairly well that smoking caused various diseases), once the research was public they could reasonably be sued for carrying on their activities. Imagine Exxon getting sued for those excess 30,000-50,000 deaths per year due to anthropogenic global warming.
Don't think this is likely? The SCO nonsense should convince you that lawyers will do absolutely anything. On the example of the tobacco company lawsuits, I doubt such action would succeed, but it could cause serious costs and embarrassment to oil companies, car companies, etc., who fail to take action to moderate their impact.
-- Nothing unusual happened today
Name an actual climatologist who seriously believes Kyoto will actually stop global warming.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
There are really only two ways that folks will take drastic action to curtail global warming: economics & disaster. If fossil fuels become so friggin' expensive that people must cut back on their usage, then things will improve (environmentaly). Likewise, if New York goes under water governments will force people to comply.
Personally, I think there's a bit too much hype around global warming. On one side we have the "Oh my God, we're all gonna' die!" crowd. On the other, the "Just keep driving, everythings okay!" crowd. Like most things, the truth is likely somewhere inbetween.
As for the U.S. stance on the environment, I don't think we're doing horribly. Sure the Bush crowd may be a little too unconcerned, but they aren't completely oblivious. It's good that they don't adopt everything Greenpeace says or we'd all be living in huts.
Now, I do think that new technologies will make it easier for people to adopt cleaner ways of life. People, in general, in this country are becoming more and more aware of the importance of the environment, especially as compared to 30 or 40 years ago. Most would like to do the right thing, but they also want to keep their way of life.
I think the upcoming success of hybrids is a great thing and really indicates the mood of the nation on this issue. I worked in that industry about 5 years ago and really thought it was a rewarding job. Hybrids & their recent successes in the market (Accord Hybrid) are an indication of public perception. People are willing to pay a little bit extra for some good technology that helps them save gas and help the environment. Seems logical enough.
In reality, until cold-fussion comes on the scene or people decide that fission isn't so bad, fossil fuels aren't going away. They're just so darn cheap and easy to use. And as much as they might damage the environment, they are the best way to produce the power necessary for modern civilization.
Wow, that was long. Did I just rant?
... those 27,000 people are still going to die at some point.
Yes. And? I don't get the point of that whole section of your post. People die, so it's okay if they die sooner? Obviously it wasn't your intention, but all I see there is, "Sorry, liberals, but it's okay to murder people as long as they're not immortal," and I don't know what conclusion that's supposed to lead people to.
In Sweden and Finland, and, to a lesser extent, Norway policy changes to industry, agriculture and the market in general are optimized to force the population into concentrated areas leaving these evacuated, desirable properties undervalued. Norway has been more stubborn or wiser about this. Sweden and Finland are currently getting hit harder. Not just in ghettoization of the population, but also in doleing out properties to foreign owners.
The price in some areas has doubled in the last 5 years as Germans become the majority. (e.g. a run down farm a day's drive from Germany underneath a noisy windmill and down wind from a pig farm went for 15 times what it would have 10 years ago) Denmark will get hit, too, once it becomes forced to allow desirable property.
The earth will lose it's ability to sustain our population long before all other earth life is extinguished. Civilization is still more fragile. We can still adapt, but better urban planning needs to take precidence over short term greed.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Guess what in 2004 is the biggest POLLUTER, and emitter of "greenhouse" gases in Washington State? It emits several times what the next biggest polluter does (a coal power plant).
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Guess?
Give up?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews
Mt. St. Helens. And it hasn't even had a MAJOR eruption yet! So, how are we going to stop volcanoes from violating the sainted Kyoto treaty?
For every scientist who predicts global warming doom and gloom, you will find as many who say that it isn't happening, or that human activity isn't a significant factor. Indeed there is ONE REASON for global warming and cooling... The Sun.
Even a relatively stable middle aged star like our Sun doesn't have constant output. There are some who think that ice ages and warming periods are caused by variations in the Sun's output. Indeed, as the Sun gets older, it's output on average INCREASES as the nuclear fusion reaction expands to get more fuel...
Speaking of ice ages, did you know we are barely 10,000 years out of our last one, and may still be warming FROM it? 10,000 years are mere seconds in geologic time.
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/v
Now I expect to get moderated down to hell.
Corporatism != Free Market
This was published in Nature, which is one of the two most prestigious science journals (the other one is Science). It is based on climate models that predict that the probability of heat waves like that of 2003 has doubled due to greenhouse gas emissions. (According to the same models, by 2050 about 50% of European summers are going to be like the 2003 or worse.)
If we suppose the probabilities from the models are correct, the attribution of part of blame to greenhouse gases is correct, just like one can claim some lung cancers are caused by tobacco.
I have already seen speculation about the possible use of the results in courts against the polluters.
The arguments the US uses to avoid signing on to Kyoto are bunk. Both China and Russia have signed, and exceeded their responsibilities under Kyoto. The US has got itself into the position where it cannot sign, because its targets are unattainable.
I read about a psychology experiment at a university. The subjects were asked to wait in a small anteroom outside the room where the experiment proper was taking place. The anteroom was equipped with a few ordinary-looking chairs, lights and pictures on the walls. Unbeknown to the subjects, the anteroom was also equipped with video cameras -- and the experimenter had a console which allowed pictures to be knocked down, chairs to collapse and light bulbs to blow at the flick of a switch. {Also plenty of spares so the anteroom didn't look too much like a war zone!} The experiment consisted of observing the subject in the anteroom, operating a self-destruct button at an appropriate time {e.g. bringing down a picture when the subject approached it} -- and then calling the subject into the room for debriefing. Most of the subjects ended up blaming themselves for the damage.
There is also the case of a DJ on a radio station in the Midlands who was playing a rather old, worn record one day, and the needle skipped. Several listeners rang in to apologise for jostling their sets and causing the record to skip!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Also note that the year 2003 had one of the highest amounts of sun spot activity in recent history. High sun spot activity has significant effects on the global climate. As the end of this article says, "There's more to global climate change than just carbon dioxide."
Love sees no species.
Indeed, we do not have accurate temperature readings for Europe or anywhere else for the last 500 years, and I would be very suspicious of the accuracy of any outdoor weather thermometer built in say 1850 or 1910. I've worked with laboratory grade mercury thermometers, and they come with a nice correction chart that usually go from about half a degree plus or minus (sometimes more) over the range of the thing.
Actually one of the side effects of Global Warming may be the shutting down of the Gulf Stream. Scientists have found that the Gulf Stream has shut down 4 times in the past 20,000 years. The shutting down of the Gulf Stream always coincided with warmer global temperatures.
The warm water from the Gulf Stream is what keeps Europe more temperate. Look on a globe and compare the latitude of London to Nova Scotia. If the gulf stream shuts down most of Northern Europe will become a tundra. Such a shift in climate will be financially and politically disasterous to the world.
It probably doesn't help that the record heat in Europe in 2003 was matched by near recod low temperatures on the east coast of the US that same summer.
But are you guys so addicted to your gas guzzlers and inefficient houses that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
Man, so many problems with this statement that I'm not sure where to begin.
First of all, there are over 250,000,000 people over here. Not only can we all think for ourselves and don't deserve to be lumped together as one group, but *most* of us don't own SUVs. In fact, the best selling cars over here are Japanese four door sedans that actually get pretty decent gas milage. Sure, SUVs are popular, but you're really stretching to say that we all refuse to consider other options. The same thing goes for your house example. Believe it or not, people make decisions like that based on cost effectiveness. If it's more for the super-low-energy usage model of some home appliance than it is for the inefficient model plus the energy savings over 5-6 years, people are more likely to go with the more wasteful model. The same thing goes for energy saving home improvements. If what exists isn't wasting enough energy to justify an upgrade, people keep what they've got. It doesn't help that energy saving appliances typically cost at least three times as much as the inefficient models....
I sincerely hope we're not at the brink of self inflicted global destruction.
While we have the power to change things drastically, I doubt we can cause global destruction. The planet isn't going anywhere. Bad things have happened before and life went on.
I agree.
We have the major climate apects we see today which are different from quite ancient history primarily due to the Himalaya mountains. Before the expansion up of the Himalaya mountains the earth was much warmer with northern Alaska being actually quite tropical. So was North America for that matter. With the Himalayas removed from computer models and the rest of the Earth elevations and oceans set to as close as we know we see the tropical environment we would expect from the fossil records on the various continents.
If you add the Himalayas, the models show North America much colder, with the gulf stream dipping down like we see today, etc. All of this was on a Discovery or PBS show a while back. I am too lazy to go find a link.
Anyway one may be inclined to think, oh warming everything up will simply offset the Himalayas and we will have nice jungles to run around in all over North America. This is of course not true because you can raise global temp's but the Himalayas are still there.
I am simply advocating better modeling to know what might happen and what actions might work to our advantage.