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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!
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.
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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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?
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.
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make install -not war