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NASA Says 2005 Could Be Warmest Year Recorded
Ant writes "CNN reports that a weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s." From the article: "While climate events like El Nino -- when warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific Ocean --affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part."
It will only be the hottest year on record for a year or so.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You apparently want Earth colder and Mars hotter. Make up your mind!
Sudden global climate change is a serious issue that should be dealt with, but it is interesting how on one side NASA feels it's possible to control and affect positive massive global climate change on Mars but fears comparatively tiny changes on Earth.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Already in Canada, we have had some January temperatures of ONLY -35 C when normally we get some days of -37 C
Definitely warmer this year!
...we live on Earth!
Two planets meet in space:
First planet: "You're not looking too well! Are you ill?"
Second planet: "Yeah, I got homo sapiens!"
First planet: "Never mind, that's one illness that quickly runs out. You may get some fever because of all the greenhouse gases, but in the end, they'll just wipe themselves out..."
I find Americans to be, on balance, very intelligent and well-informed. They tend to hold views similar to those of intelligent, well-informed people of other countries, with two exceptions:
(1) Gun control. Way more smart Americans believe in the right to carry a weapon than smart non-Americans. Most of the rest of the Western world thinks the US is kind of insane on this issue, actually.
(2) Global warming. It is near-universally accepted outside the US that this is happening, and that humankind is responsible. But many smart Americans doubt this.
I resist the urge to inject my own views here because I simply wanted to point this out. It's odd.
I should buy some cement.
the coldest year on record
the wettest year on record
the dryest year on record
the fewest storms on record
the most storms on record
Depending on where you live, your exact location could have any of these conditions. It's funny how the most generic weather predictions can always be proven true.
All in all, 2005 looks to be pretty scary. I wouldn't go outside, based on NASA's findings.
---gralem
Frequently asked questions about the science of climate change
I find it very helpful.
In the US, we allow people to call themselves neo-Nazis and salute Hitler while holding a sign proclaiming that "God hates fags." And, as nauseating as I find those points of view, I think people should have the right to express them (but not to act on them.)
The bottom line is that the right to keep and bear arms is directly linked to the right to free speech (which most of us cherish). And one could argue quite strongly that the American tendency to hold opinions that differ from (todays) academic orthodoxy is itself a direct application of that same right of free speech.
If the rest of the world jumps off a cliff, should America join them?
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Nasa says 2005 budget could be lowest recorded.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
There may exist controversy around the topic of global warming and global warming may just be part of this planets natural way of evolving into whatever global climate is next. There were many types of global climates in the past and there is no proof that humans are the ones causing this temperature change.... and I read somewhere that termites and cows produce more green house gases than humans....
But if the fear of global warming causes people to adapt a cleaner and healthier lifestyle then so be it and i'm all for it and infact there should be active participation by all people to keep the enviornment clean.
People should, however, learn to share their concern about global warming with other global disastors happening.. or waiting to happen.. Illiteracy rates, population explosion, terrible health care for people, etc.. should all be taken care of and they all pose a huge short term risk which is much greater than the risk of global warming.
One can say "only a 1 or 2 deg. Celsius". In fact, first it is a mean temperature, second, the climate might turn out to on the verge of some major deterministic chaos state.
As an example, during the so called Little Ice Age the global temperature dropped by about 1 deg. C, but it caused the following: (from Wikipedia)
Glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced, gradually engulfing farms and crushing entire villages. The River Thames and the canals and rivers of the Netherlands often froze over during the winter, and people skated and even held fairs on the ice. In the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction, closing that island nation's harbors to shipping.
The chaotic nature of weather patterns might, in turn, hypothetically cause that some very small change causes a major switch, i. e. in sea currents. I do not know if anyone now either predicts or excludes for sure any such event, though.
So, concluding, I think that we do not really know how much serious to the climate the global warming is.
We have a government that does pretty much what we tell it because we have two guns for every three citizens and a tradition of cleaning house when needed.
You mean the American revolution? As far as democratic change goes, that was a pretty lightweight and recent effort. Nations like France fought long and hard for democracy, other nations in Europe have had a tradition of democracy going back a thousand years, and yet others had democracies and lost them again. America is a newcomer in the area of creating and maintaining democratic government, and there is no support for the view that America's gun policies are responsible for the current existence of democracy in the US, in particular since attitudes towards guns and gun ownership were altogether different around the time of the American revolution.
Please feel free to show the evidence that the U.S. government is significantly more scared of its populations than other national governments. Feel free to work in references to legislation such as the Patriot Act, where appropriate. Or any legislative issues where gun ownership made a difference.
an accurate forcast for two days out in Oklahoma, and not in the middle of the summer with a high presure sitting on top of us (upper 90s, sunny, 70% humidity), then I will believe them.
Forcast: Partly cloudly and a high of 41
Actual: 1 inch of snow, high of 33
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
-- Governor George W. Bush, Jr.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I think I speak for us all when I say:
BRING ON GLOBAL WARMING!
I'm sick of living under constant cold and rain, this news is fantastic. If only we humans could influence and accelerate this global warming thing, rather than it being just a natural variation, it would be fantastic! Long hot summers, warm winters, sunny springs and autumns, life would be a hundred times better.
Think of the dirty '30s dustbowl as being the norm, not an exception.
Think of Europe having much colder winters because of the lack of a thermocline to drive the gulf stream currents.
Think of rising oceans as the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps melt, and as the waters around the earth rise due to thermal expansion.
Think of recurring global catastrophies that make the recent tidal wave look like "just another day".
Think of what we're handing our kids.
Think - everyone said "don't worry, it won't happen in our lifetimes anyway."
I think they were wrong.
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Think long hot DRY summers - crop failure, famine, death and disease.
Ah....long hot summers, I can't wait. As for dry and crop failure, that's what we have water for. It generally counteracts the effects of dryness. Also, there are countries with warm sunny climates and they haven't died of famine, in fact they'r thriving. What are you talking about? Are you saying that Italy for instance is an arid wasteland, where not even olives can grow?
Think of Europe having much colder winters because of the lack of a thermocline to drive the gulf stream currents.
That comment lacks a basis in reality. You have no evidence of the gulf stream being disrupted. Please stick to facts in this discussion.
Think of rising oceans as the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps melt, and as the waters around the earth rise due to thermal expansion.
That will be insignificant. Also the temperature will not have to rise high enough to melt the ice caps in order to give us a nice climate.
Think of recurring global catastrophies that make the recent tidal wave look like "just another day".
That is pure speculation, the same as your comment about cold winters. You have no evidence for this, you have given no details. Claiming the sky is falling doesn't make a coherent argument against global warming. You have nothing to say.
Think of what we're handing our kids.
A warmer, nicer place to live? What a great legacy.
At any rate, there's nothing we can do about it anyway, so just sit back, crack open a cool can of beer, warm up the barbecue, slap on the sun-cream and enjoy it.
"Think of what we're handing our kids."
Thats an easy one, don't reproduce!
(Not only intended as funny)
You honestly think the government is more responsible because you have guns? You actually believe your government is afraid of you? Talk about an inflated sense of self-worth :-)
Seriously though, your "tradition of cleaning house when needed" would come to an abrupt end when that small gathering of armed civilians gets an Apache-helicopter-beatdown. Don't kid yourself about being able to wrest control of the government away by force.
Funny enough, do you know what the US would look like if this scenario were to play out?
Iraq.
Before you base your response to a very serious environmental situation on a work of fiction, please read this. Crichton uses a bunch of proven-false arguments, and wraps a transparent opinion piece in a layer of fiction, yet still tries to make a political point. And in the process he basically slanders a whole bunch of very earnest, hard-working scientists. It's really quite despicable.
Personally I think there has to be a balance where we work to protect the enviroment but do not have to tramatize our kids with scary tales of the world ending in their lifetimes.
I grew up in the 80's; the nukes could fly any minute (that really could've happened). I turned out just fine. So I'm not too worried about traumatizing kids. Besides, the consensus view states that there would be a 2-6 deg increase in global average temperture, not "that the world will end". You can infer from such a rise that the disruption will be very severe, but I think it is simply idiocy to argue that we shouldn't warn people "just because it might scare the kids".
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
There was an article in a 1975 edition of Newsweek where scientists were sure of a global cooling. Now it's a global warming?
Scientific hypothosi(sp?) evolve; religious nut jobs stay the same. That's the big difference. I'd be a lot more worried if thirty years of scientific research resulted in no changes in theory.
So what source do you cite that says Christians think it's okay to ignore global warming because of the Second Coming? I'd like to see that article.
You seem to be considering the relationship. Here's a link to your Rapture Index on your site. You have climate at "5" in your "waiting for the end of the world" chart. To be fair, your do say "We cannot take a defeatist attitude and just let things fall apart. Each of us has a responsibility to one another to care for the world around us.". But for us liberals out there, we don't actually see the fundamentalists doing much except burning books and bombing things. Maybe if the fundamentalists occasionally tried to save an endangered species or kept a national park from being turned into a stip mine or simply lobbied for higher fuel efficiency standards, we might think your words meant something.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Your picking of Italy as an example shows you know little on agriculture. Olives (and wine) do not need much water to grow. But you can't live on wine and olives. You need grass to feed the herds on, you need a lot more water to grow crops, vegetables and fruits. Southern Italy is becoming really dry by now, esp. Sicily.
Hot summers can be dangerous to old people, as over 10,000 dead in France during the 2004 (or 2003) summer show.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Global "warming" isn't going to just raise everyone's thermostat by 5'C. It's cranking up the chaotic fractal dimension of the atmosphere. Some places will get colder. Like when the Greenland ice melts, flushing fresh water into the North Atlantic, it will push the "Thermo Haline Circulation" farther south, making the warm Gulf Stream flow more directly from America to, say, France, instead of warming the Baltic. The UK will plunge into an arctic climate like northern Scandanavia, along with the rest of northern Europe. Other places are likely to also freeze or drop, though the average will be higher, meaning some places will become hellishly hot. And the kinds of storms we'll see in the ongoing transition will make hurricanes look like mist.
--
make install -not war
SUVs are not bad, they are the result of quite a lot of evolving engineering that has revolved around peoples needs and wants. You don't NEED a later model computer to surf the net, you can surf just fine with a 486, but do you want to? Are you still on a 486 era computer, or are you driving something bigger/better/faster/fits your needs better machine right this second? I own solar PV and a wind genny, do you? I think anyone with a gram of brains should own some, and if they don't they are evil and stupid. Whoops, sounds elitist doesn't it? I advocate people do, but I wouldn't say they are evil and stupid if they don't. I'm still on a computer that most slashdotters would chunk in the rubbish, an old pp200, yet it fits my needs enough I don't have to junk it or pollute to get a larger/faster/ more energy hog one at this second. That will change obviously, but everyones needs are different, yes? So what is "evil"? what's stupid really? Is it because it's just different? Glass houses and stones.
People will naturally switch to practical alternatives once they are, to use the expression, "on the shelf' for purchase. Practical is the keyword there. Some of the hottest best selling vehicles in the US are the hybrids now, including SUV hybrids that are just now hitting the market. You look at what is hot at the car shows, look at what is being demanded at the dealers. I'll tell you if you haven't looked, Hybrids are hot, besides in small cars like the Prius, they are coming in the SUV design and pickups, and new design high mileage cleaner burning diesels are hot and coming on strong in the near future, as well as the increasing interest in such things as biodiesel. Those are the two really large trends now you can readily see with a little research.
We are such a physically large nation that mass public transportation is not near as practical as in other nations, so we use roads and private vehicles more, just the way it is and no amount of complaining is going to put light rail to everyones doorstep or back yard mr fusion reactors in everyones aprtament or home. The tech and money isn't there yet for that. Neither. Nor would it even be remotely practical, that's why it isn't being done, there's little demand for it, because it just plain wouldn't work. It would be a humongously impractical polluting expensive lame idea to try and put some sort of light rail everyplace that humans need to go to.
We have "cars" of various types. that is what suits our needs in the US presently as a universal general concept in transportation. Primarily this is what we use. Those few areas and niche markets that absolutely can be better served by light rail or walking, ARE being served with light rail and walking right now, daily millions commute on light rail, IF it serves their needs, and everyone has different needs. When I lived urban I frequently took the commuter train, except when it didn't serve my needs, then I drove the approriate vehicle, or occassionaly rented a large truck, say when moving.
It's just how we socially evolved, and those sorts of SUV styled vehicles are practical for a lot of people, millions and millions of people. SUVs caught on because they are just a latter version of the old "family station wagon",just with even better features, and more useful features. These got popular because they filled a "needs" niche so well, people (a lot of people, not all but a lot) needed a "universal" designed vehicle that could function to get dad to work (a commuter vehicle), haul the family to the beach(a very large car or van to fit all the family and their gear), bring home the lumber and bricks and bags of cement for the back yard weekend patio project (some sort of truck), and etc. You can buy three specifically designed vehicles for those purposes, or one vehicle that covers all the needed uses. If you don't believe it, go to any Home Depot on the weekend and look at the parking lots. You'll see huge numbers of SUVs packed with stuff that would normally
I would suggest you are someone that also needs to read more. We are heading into our 6th year of your nice hot and dry summers. As a result we are having to greatly curtail irrigation in most parts of the state and we aren't the only state having to do this. Unless major rains fall this spring and summer, many irrigators in the western part of the state will run out of water around the end of June and beginning of July. This amounts to about 1/3 to 1/2 the water needed to fully raise a crop. Last summer we were fortunate in having one of the top 5 coolest summers on record to spare some of the impact but it was a minor blip on the screen. At the current pace of drawdowns, the largest reservoir in the state is in danger of growing dry. This was a lake that not 3 years ago was over 20 miles long and 4 miles wide. Some groundwater irrigators have had to either look at drilling much deeper wells or giving up irrigation due to the large drops in water levels created by the increased pumping. The comparison to areas such as Italy is a specious arguement at best as the crops you cited are indigenous to their part of the world. Olives require an arid climate. Also, you don't have to go very far afield to exotic parts of the world to find devestation in local populaces due to hot and dry climates wiping out crops. In parts of Russia and former Soviet states, they have had and most likely will continue to have crop failures due to the changes in climates in their parts of the world. To believe that we are somehow immune to it happening here is akin to sticking your head in the sand.
Granted, most of the global warming being recorded can be traced to increased solar activity warming the oceans but some recent studies I've read show a shortfall in that impact that could only be accounted for by human activity. And actually, most indicators that scientists are looking at to explain the the Florida hurricanes this past season point to influences or warming. Glacier depletion also started before the increases in solar activity began. The only account for this has been the increase in overall global temps. It would be wise to remember that global warming does not mean increases of several degrees. What seem like small increases of a degree or 2 to the average person are enormous changes to the climate. To believe that there is nothing that can be done is similar to the same diatribes put forth not that long ago that there is nothing to be done about air and water polution. Last I was aware, great strides had been made in both areas in this country and abroad. And since many of the same strategies also reduce carbon releases into the atmosphere, I would posit that there is something "we" can do rather than instead being so flippant as to say oh well have a beer and enjoy.
I recently moved away from Florida. While there, the drinkable ground water level dropped significantly each year.
The aquifer that supplies that region extends up into Georgia and slopes downhill into Florida. As more water is sucked out for use by Floridians (for lawns, golf courses and industry) brackish water is drawn in, permanantly contaminating the aquifer. This trend is moving steadily south as the water level drops each year and can be seen by maping the increase in private wells contaminated by salt water (something I was involved in when I lived and worked down there). The trend is startling and rapid. Any increase like the one mentioned in the article will only exacerbate this growing problem.
The aquifer cannot recover from this and increases in temperature (already barely tolerable down there, in my opinion) combined with Florida's constant growth in population (inexplicable to me :) all point to trouble in the future with the water supply down there (although some of the worst water abusers were paper pulp mills and golf courses, rather than private citizens).