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A Warming Planet Can Mean More Snow
Ponca City, We love you writes "NPR reports that with snow blanketing much of the country, the topic of global warming has become the butt of jokes; but for scientists who study the climate, there's no contradiction between a warming world and lots of snow. 'The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago means there's about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was... in the 1970s,' says Kevin Trenberth, a prominent climate scientist. 'So one of the consequences of a warming ocean near a coastline like the East Coast and Washington, DC, for instance, is that you can get dumped on with more snow partly as a consequence of global warming.' Increased snowfall also fits a pattern suggested by many climate models, in which rising temperatures increase the amount of atmospheric moisture, bringing more rain in warmer conditions and more snow in freezing temperatures."
The East Coast gets a bit of a blizzard (I live in DC but am from Minnesota). People start saying, "Global warming?! HA!"
...
Meanwhile Sagar Island shrinks away from rising oceans.
Meanwhile a UAB professor claims ocean acidification is yet another measurable effect of climate change.
Meanwhile Eastern Antarctica (the steadfast 'unaffected' part of Antarctica) begins to show signs of melting (via NASA and U of TX).
Feel free to keep using your local area to prove/disprove climate change. One day the facts will pile up
My work here is dung.
Well, maybe for 2009 to not be the hottest year in recorded history, or 2000-2009 to be the hottest decade in recorded history, for one.
Maybe not for a clear upward trend in average global temperature over the last 100 years, for another.
Stuff that was predicted well before it actually happened is not evidence to the contrary. If your restricted mental model of how climate works doesn't allow you to comprehend the mechanism that allows global warming to lead to more precipitation, then I'm not sure anyone here can help you. Weather != climate. Luckily the people actually working on the problem are way beyond that first-year course issue. It's unfortunate that there are so many people like yourself with voting powers getting in their way though.
Well it takes more than repeating easily debunked platitudes and specious arguments. Here's Jones' original quote...
Jones: "Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods."
Sounds a bit more measured and reasonable than your biased histrionics. Yes?
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So my question is this: For a theory to be Science it must be falsifiable; so what would it take for one of you True Believers to reconsider your theory?
If a ball falls down it is because of gravity.
If it bounces back up it is because of gravity.
If comet flies into the solar system it is because of gravity.
If the comet slingshots around jupiter and permanently exits the solar system it is because of gravity.
If the tide rises it is because of gravity.
If the tide recedes it is because of gravity.
See how easy it is to gloss over the details and make something perfectly normal seem contradictory?
That's the kind of thing people have made up their mind and are only interested in promulgating their point of view do - not someone who is asking genuine questions.
When Phil Jones says there has been no warming for fifteen years, it doesn't mean anything. In fact, to date only the Moonies at the Wash. Times and Fox News consider his statement worthy of repeating. (He said it to the BBC, btw, not known as a bastion of Deniers.)
Except, that's not what he said:
BBC - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
PJ - Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
See now how that's nothing like the denial you spun it as? Or maybe you really didn't spin it, maybe you didn't even bother to go to first sources and just took the word of other spinmeisters - you know the ones who follow the mantra "if it bleeds, it leads!" Sucks not being able to apply critical thinking and google to do your own fact checking.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Ok, but 2009 wasn't and 2000-2009 wasn't. Don't believe me
Ok, I won't:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
Inertia that was originally provided by a force overcoming gravity, which converted kinetic energy into potential energy. The bouncing back up is due to elasticity. It slowing and coming back down is due to gravity.
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I think you have it backwards. Time series estimates tend to be more uncertain with shorter windows. The "also calculated" trends were from longer datasets with higher statistical significance (and surprise! They also indicate warming!) He's being asked to comment on a period where insufficient data exists for a statistically strong statement, and says the trend is still positive, albeit with less confidence.