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2005 Will Probably be Warmest on Record
Nilmat writes "A Washington Post Article notes that 2005 will probably have the highest mean global temperature of any year since the advent of systematic temperature records. At the moment, the mean temperature is about 0.75 degrees C above the global mean from 1950 to 1990, approximately .04 degrees higher than 1998, the year of the previous record. Only something dramatic, such as a major volcanic eruption, could cause enough cooling to miss setting a new record."
Don't count out a huge volcanic eruption. With all the natural disasters so far this year, a nice big poof out of a volcano would round things out nicely.
On a non related note real estate valuations in Siberia and Canada are rising to new highs.
**Life is too short to be serious**
This sounds great until you realize that more atmospheric energy implies more extreme weather. And that it will shift climate zones so that regions which were once temperate become deserts, or deserts become rainforests. A shift in the atmospheric equilibrium will lead to more water vapor in the atmosphere, and more intense rains and flooding. The sudden melting of vast quantities of land-locked ice will release pressure from the earth and potentially lead to earthquakes (did you know that the island of Great Britain is slowly tilting because of the enormous weight of ice that was lifted during the last Ice Age? And that happened gently over thousands of years.)
You know, maybe humans are responsible for global warming, and maybe they're not. But it's happening, and perhaps it would be prudent to do what we can to not enhance the warming any further. Because you know, why fuck with the one planet we've got?
Answer:
* The intermediate period where famine and human suffering are caused by difficulty in both regions due to growing human population and temp. shinking food supply
* Massive flooding along costal areas
* Increased weather event strength due to warmer tropic waters
* (and this is sure to get me modded +1 True) The poor Canadians when Texas gets the US to invade due to Texas becoming a desert... "YEE HA"
Try telling that to people living in low lying coastal areas or on small islands.
As an average citizen, I don't even care. I'll be dead before it ever impacts me. That's not a very nice thing to say - I know - but it's practical.
How many hundreds of people will have to nit-pick their entire lives over every purchase they make, every item they reuse, every thing they throw away, every little thing they consume, washing out tin cans to reuse them for... whatever... -- just to compensate for one illegally dumped barrel or government legitimized "waste disposal"?
Anyway, I figure I've already done my part. I don't drive or own a car and I don't intend to have any kids.
Frankly, I'm not sold on "man is killing the planet and causing it to heat up!". I'm open to it, but not sold on it. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt for people, businesses and governments to take precautions anyway. Just because we may not be directly responsible for any global warming or cooling wouldn't mean that we shouldn't try to keep our planet clean and habitable for all on it anyway.
If this trend continues though, I'll just start wearing whatever the appropriate colored ribbon is that shows I care about the environment. Look at all the people with aids that red ribbons have helped. It's almost like fricking prayer beads! Ooh!
Sure there are lots of Greenhouse deniers, and no shortage of oil-business newspapers, like the Calgary Alberta Sun, that will print them. Because there's no shortage of oil and coal money to buy their hot air the press that keeps them in business.
But enough of dignifying your industry FUD propaganda with exposure. How about you just explain how the human workweek doesn't change the weather, in light of that Scientific American article to which I linked?
Then again, if you think people who want us to survive the Greenhouse we're creating somehow want all climate warming to be eliminated, it will be a cold day in hell before you have anything worthwhile to hear on the subject.
--
make install -not war
Which will make some insurance companies suffer until the government bails them out - but even the rich homeowners there will simply move to the new coastal areas in central-califoria/death-valley.
The vast majority of people in coastal areas, even in the US, are not 'rich homeowners'.
A large percentage (most?) of the worlds population lives within a few miles of a sea.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Despite doubts about whether or not human activity is contributing to gloabl warming, we still have the responsibility to minimize our impact.
As you point out, Climatology is hard. There are several known unknowns, and even more unknown unkowns. Until we can be CERTAIN that we are not taking the risk of causing dramatic climate change, particularly given the haunting specter of a threshhold after which climate changes accelerates, we need to proceed with caution.
If there is ANY believable evidence that our actions are causing global warming, we need to take action to lessen those actions.
Period.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Suppose the temperate band moves 5 degrees towards the poles, what happens? Would there be the same amount of arable land, or more, or less?
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY has the slightest idea.
And even worse, nobody will ever have.
You see, climate is the poster child for dynamic complex systems, and is inherently unpredictable beyond a few days.
Climate is obviously affected by global mean temperature, but is not the same thing.
A lot of people here seems to think that a warmer Earth will be just like now, but you know, warmer.
In reality, even a small change of mean temperature is going to cause massive disruptions in climate patterns, but we have no way to predict them.
Cheers,
Carlos Cesar
Yeah, becaause it was those damn Newtonian special interest groups holding back Einsteinian physics.
So tell me again, what is the "political motivation" of those climatologists who believe in global warming? They want to believe we're poisoning our atmosphere because... they hate convenience? Seems to me the only side with something to gain is the anti-warming crowd.
Let me be the first to say that correlation is even less a denier of causation than it is a confirmer. And that, in the absence of a positable common cause, the correlation of two trends is good evidence of causation. Further, that when one trend, climate change, cannot be shown to cause another, human changes to the global environment, and there is no evidence that that other trend impedes the first, then the case for that other trend, human changes to the environment, as cause of the first, climate change, is compelling.
Then there's correlations so close that they're undeniably causation. Especially when the mechanics of the causation are understood enough to immediately recognize, like manmade pollution creating the Greenhouse. Oh, and while we're retaining our objective scientific tone, I'll add that manmade climate change is the most reliable model we have, with which we successfully make predictions about further climate change. Having discharged that responsibility, I'll also point out that invoking abstract scientific principles to create FUD about how we're destroying ourselves to satisfy the greed of aging industrialists who never suffer any consequences for anything is really stupid. QED.
--
make install -not war
"Why? I have said it before and I will say it again -- IT DOES NOT MATTER! The Earth will fix itself. The human race is not important in the grand scheme of things as far as the Earth is concerned."
Nice. Do you take the same approach to individual pollution (like throwing plastic bags in a stream), or to violent criminal activity? I mean, really, killing 10 people doesn't make a difference to society as a whole, it will heal itself.
Your lack of respect for the world around us is scary. The Earth will go on, it is true. But in what form? Why should WE be the agents of change? How is it acceptable for us to cause mass extinctions, to remake the planet as we see fit? To poison other species, and ourselves, just because we think that in the long run, it doesn't matter?
Your selfish attitude should absolutely appall anyone with a sense of personal responsibility.
What gives you the right to deprive future generations from experiencing the Earth in its natural state, or as close to it as possible?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
What an utter load of lies and deception. These issues are known about, and have been carefully tackled many, many times. To state these goes beyond mere ignorance, to deliberate attempts to mislead the public.
Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
That's because the satellites were taking an average of several layers, the weather balloons weren't accounting for improvements in radiation shielding technology and so on. Adjusted, they now fully match the results we have.
Myth 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
Not according to the actual data. The proportional increase in carbon dioxide is huge, by all available data. And yes, ALL of that increase is due to human activity, because for example measurements of carbon dioxide concentration in the sea shows that the sea is actively absorbing CO2. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87
Myth 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
This is a strawman. Hell, the most common greenhouse gas is probably Nitrogen. Anything has a greenhouse effect. The issue is whether the gas is a cause of climate change or not. Water, despite it's significance, isn't. Changes in water concentration in the atmosphere is rapidly evened out - we call it rain. But it never rains carbon dioxide. The action of water is as a positive multiplier for global warming - warming increases the level of equilibrium of water in the atmosphere, which makes CO2 a more significant effect, not less.
Don't listen to these 'friends of science'. They are lying to you.
And exactly how do we know that? How many ice ages has "recorded history" gone through? None, I'm pretty sure. Didn't we just discover fire before the last ice-age? We don't even have weather statistics for the entire past century - but we somehow know for sure that global warming is real, is entirely caused by humans and is going to kill us all?
There's nothing wrong with playing it safe. There's certainly no reason for society not to conserve and live clean, but let's not jump to conclusions, either.
Both sides of the "global warming" debate have political and economic motivations.
I understand the economic motivations of scientists working for oil companies and related industries. What are the economic motivations of scientists who think global warming is at least a partial result of human activity? (Other than, of course, the economic benefits of human survival.)
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
Yeah those are based on fuzzy logic and models that predict 2-5 degrees C warming for the 20th century that turned out to be .6 Degrees C. So we can take those with a grain of salt.
But even factoring in worst case fronm your point, going by your quote, and realizing Proto multiplied times the wrong number we get 20 Centimeters. or 7.1 inches in the next 100 years. RUN PEOPLE RUN THE SEA IS GOING TO RISE 7 INCHES IN A HUNDRED YEARS THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN OUTRUN THAT!!!!!
Divided by a factor of five (which is particularly alarmist), that means which we'll reach max melt of all arctic areas (absurd) we have increased that melt to the point where total meltdown is 38,000 years away.
But that is an unrealistic scenario based upon models that cannot predict present temperatures, and are often wrong by a factor of 4 or 5.
Completely ignoring any changes in the future 38 millenia, the negative logarithmic progression of greenhouse warming*, and the fact that winter isn't going to stop happening anytime soon.
Regardless of all that of BS, you are completely ignoring the fact that even worse case scenario we aren't talking about drastic sea level rises. Do you agree that even based on your quote we are still looking at fairly moderate sea level changes that are nothing to worry about. Or are you simply trying to distract from my point because even in your scenario the sea level rise is minor (worst case(bordering on the absurd) scenario) so you'd rather play a game of distracting from the fundamental point.
In fact based upon those numbers and all the other scaremongering they don't even look at a linear progression, but a positive logarithmic, which goes completely against everything we know about greenhouse warming.
Sometimes it is. But quite often, it is the main thing leading you down the wrong path.
In this case, the "I know what's happening crowd" is looking at some very tiny variations from a very abbreviated data set and drawing some very large conclusions from them, and then clamoring for some very profound and difficult reactions on the part of, well, just about everyone.
It is well to keep in mind that that the .04 degree quoted in the article is not .04% (it is much less) and that the highest recorded temperature means that we've got a number which should be evaluated as one sample out of 1x10^6 if we want to understand what this year's temperature stats mean in terms of human history.
Yet... it can only be evaluated as one sample out of 2x10^3, which can be fairly characterized as what it means to my grandfather and not a lot more.
That's not to say that global warming is, or isn't, happening. Just that these temperature measurements are woefully lacking as good quality signposts. We can add to that a few core measurements and some general knowledge, which doesn't significantly improve the quality of the data for our current situation.
We should keep in mind that the earth sees huge temperature swings without the aid of man's actions. At one time, North America was tropical here in Montana. I live not even 15 miles from where you can dig T. Rex skeletons from the ground as well as tropical vegetation. At another time, this area was covered by glaciers. Neither circumstance required or depended upon man's intervention or activity.
Yes, the world changes without our approval. Yes, we'll have to adapt if it does. Yes, we'll have to be clever about it when the changes are major. No, this year's temperature isn't a certain sign of any such change. Yes, we should continue to pay attention. No, we shouldn't start running around like chickens.
We now return you to your usual sensationalist ravings. :-)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Well, consider. This isn't a really bad Hollywood movie like "The Day After Tomorrow", it is reality, and there is natural law to mediate between nature and your nightmares. The fact is, if the flooding you speak of occurs, it won't happen such that a bunch of lowland dwellers go to sleep Tuesday night, dry, and wake up Wednesday morning floating on their mattresses. We will see it coming, people and businesses can migrate (and they will... believe me, they will.)
Again, if the climate is changing along these lines, you can be certain that just as Florida's coral outcrop goes under and provides zillions of new acres of game fish habitat, other parts of the country will change also. Areas that are too cold for raising oranges, for instance, will warm up and become useful in that way. Areas like mine, that see -40 degree temperatures some winters will see (perhaps) -35 degrees instead, and we won't have to plug in our cars as many evenings, saving some energy. Death Valley will probably still suck every day of the year.
And so on. The one thing you can be certain of is that things will change, and as they change, humans will adapt.
I see no reason for anyone to panic, or even seriously worry, at this point. We should pay attention, and we are. There is no indication we are facing any big changes in the near future, nor any sudden ones in any future as far as global warming goes. Nature will supply us with the facts no matter what they are. In the meantime, the sky isn't falling, and that's a fact. The sky might move a little, though we cannot be certain of this, and if it does, it'll do so slowly and gently and we will have plenty of time to rearrange ourselves as required, both as a civilization and as individuals.
And you know what else? If and as change comes, we'll no doubt turn it to our advantage. More heat, more energy, more liquid water, more opportunity. It's what we do. The ones of us who aren't running in circles, screaming hysterically about global warming, that is.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.