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2005 Was the Hottest Year on Record
Gulthek writes "As predicted, 2005 was the hottest year since accurate temperature recording began in the late 1800s.
This news is all the more interesting because 2005 was not an "El Niño" year like 1998, the previous record holder."
Scientists didn't know, so they got more data and analysed the data they had
more carefully so that they got closer to knowing. While a few "respected scientists" can be found to hold out against just about anything,
virtually any competent authority will now agree that there is accelerating warming over the last 100-200 years
which does not look like part of any of the cycles we can see in the climatic record.
This srticle is not old. Journals would not publish it if there were. There is new data, and more careful analysis, and yes, it still supports the view that anomalous warming is occurring.
Are you a troll or just ignorant (I bet the former)? Global warming does have the word warm in it, but the idea is not that everywhere is going to get hotter; weather is going to get weird. That kind of weather is not normal in that part of India - it adds to the picture of the global climate in crisis, not detracts from it.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Also, even more than temperature averages, I'd like to see what the standard deviation of temperatures over history is, and how we compare to that. That is the real measure of what's going on, not if we're "higher than average" or whatever.
Of course, I don't at all think that the climate isn't changing, and I don't think that human activity doesn't affect it. I think, though, panic or zealotry is not an appropriate response to the change. I don't even think huge global programs are the proper response: I think the correct thing is a proper response from everyone on the smallest level possible and the large problems will sort themselves out.
Remember, the problem isn't so much the change in temperature, but the resulting change in geographic distribution of certain things like arable land, habitable land, disease, etc. Basically we will need some combination of migration, new construction, etc. to mitigate the changing environment. I don't think any one of those things is necessarily bad. The problem is, humans typically don't handle change well and will just end up fighting each other.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
After reading this poster's tag-line I did wonder, but then I re-read what he's saying and it does seem he wants this comment taken at face value.
Is it possible that he could have overlooked that climate change in our planet's history did not involve quite the same situation as we have today with the human levels of interference in the natural eco-systems ?
Leaving aside the tendency for the media to over-state, over-dramatise and over-simplify all issues surely when large numbers of far more sobre, intelligent and conscientious members of the global scientific community consider a problem is serious enough for research, debate and recommendations for global action, surely we should listen to them ?
Perhaps the poster has already studied the scientific data and drawn his own conclusions but since science is built on small advances in knowledge (with occasional larger ones) it is surely naive to totally dismiss a field of study that is still so active ?
I could hazard a guess that the poster is from the US, which would be based on a suspicion that information circulating in mainstream media in that part of the world might be unduly influenced by interested parties in energy or government, but I don't want to personalise this in any way. I just think it is naive, dangerous and frankly irresponsible to dismiss this debate while we're still collecting scientific data
At the same time, the fact that many people can use absolutely any piece of climatological data (like record cold, as you just did) to point to global warming doesn't really help the case.
That's true, but if the overall average weather isn't changing, we should also expect new records to become increasingly rare with time, and the frequency of record cold years to be about the same as the frequency of record hot years.
I remember the coldest years of the century back in the 1970s. Record low temps, record snowfall. No wonder it was so easy back then to agree with the idea of Global Cooling.
I just wish there would be more science in the discussion rather than "Global Warming is happening, we need to act NOW!!!"
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
The problem (mostly sulfur in fossil fuels) was reduced significantly, either by removing the stuff in the first place (for example from gasoline), or by using appropriate filters (in coal-fired power plants, for example).
Guess what: The same thing happened to other "scares", like the lead scare. These problems can be reduced or eliminated, after people stop ignoring them.
A few points that are always ignored by the global warming will kill us all crowd:
There are abnormal patterns in today's patterns (not a single one of which has never been recorded before, I might add) and this causes lots and lots of people to suddenly know and understand exactly what the cause is, and who to blame. India is getting abnormally cold temperatures - as CNN puts it, the current temperatures are the coldest in 70 years. If, as you claim, today's really cold temperatures are the blame of "global warming", then what caused the cold temperatures 70 years ago? Or are the climate boogeymen SO horrible that they are setting up kind of a resonant wave of evil that travels back in time and makes the land of the elephants go brrrr?
If greenhouse gas and ONLY greenhouse gas causes India to go brrrrr, what caused the cold snap 70 years ago? If something ELSE caused the cold back then, then how do you KNOW that the same mechanism (which has yet to be identified other than 'sometimes weather does stuff') isn't doing it again today?
The global warming crowd warns that Europe is going to get cold because (and ONLY because) of the greenhouse gasses, yet can't explain all of those old paintings of ice skaters.
Weather fluxuates. Always has. Always will. To claim that every -previous- shift in climate was completely natural but THIS one is caused by humans... well, I'm probably just wasting my breath.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Nature doesn't give a shit what we do. We don't have it in our capacity to make this world uninhabitable.
I am pretty sure planting a few hundred hydrogen bombs a couple of miles below the surface of the planet at strategic locations, and detonating them, would make the world uninhabitable.
Trust me, if we really wanted to, we could.
We don't know NEARLY enough about climate to take stabs at the end result of all this.
That's my opinion as well. However, what to do about our ignorance is the question. IMHO since we know so little, we should strive to minimize our impact until we really understand what our impact is. Some people think that because we don't know what our impact is, screw it, let's pave the planet, and subdue the oil producing nations so we can all buy houses 50 miles from where we work every day and drive to work on $1.50/gal gas.
The facts seem pretty clear to me:
1. We know CO2 levels are rising (and we know human activities add CO2 to the atmosphere)
2. We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas. (However, water vapor is actually the number one greenhouse gas, followed by CO2.)
3. We know the greenhouse effect warms our planet. (Without it the average temperature would be -18C http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_Effect)
So how can we not be concerned about global warming? You may be able to argue that the effects won't be that bad or that humans simply aren't creating enough CO2 to cause problems (not sure if I'd agree with you on either point) but it just doesn't seem logical to assert we're having no affect on the environment.
First, there is a false premise in this assertion. A consensus of scientists based on scientific studies is very different from a consensus of "believers" that agree that the world is going to end on 11/11/11 because it's all ones. Conflating all forms of consensus is enough of a reason to disregard everything else you say.
Second, most things in life and science are not, nor ever will be, proven. The theory of gravity has not been proven, but there is a consensus of scientists that believe it based on repeated studies that match their views.