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NASA Scientist: Heat Waves Really Are From Global Warming
mdsolar writes with a tidbit from the New York Times on global warming: "The percentage of the earth's land surface covered by extreme heat in the summer has soared in recent decades, from less than 1 percent in the years before 1980 to as much as 13 percent in recent years, according to a new scientific paper. The change is so drastic, the paper says, that scientists can claim with near certainty that events like the Texas heat wave last year, the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the European heat wave of 2003 would not have happened without the planetary warming caused by the human release of greenhouse gases. Those claims, which go beyond the established scientific consensus about the role of climate change in causing weather extremes, were advanced by James E. Hansen, a prominent NASA climate scientist, and two co-authors in a scientific paper published online on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'The main thing is just to look at the statistics and see that the change is too large to be natural,' Dr. Hansen said in an interview."
Look at the abstract. This isn't arguing about the accuracy of fractional degree measurements at individual weather stations: it is about > 3 sigma events over >10% of the Earth's surface, quite large changes and exactly the kind of thing that would be expected if more energy was being added to the atmosphere. For years the climatologists have been trying to explain that adding energy doesn't simply make everything slightly warmer, but will have effects larger in one place and smaller in another. This study tends to bear that out and emphasises that the extremes are over large land masses - again as would be expected. I am rather glad I live close enough to the Atlantic to be affected by Atlantic weather patterns, but far enough that we rarely get the worst of the storms, even though I am going to have to put in extra soil drainage in October.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
How did people think we could dump that much energy into any system and it would not make a difference?
Well, that's weird: people commenting without having an idea about the issue.
We dumping energy into the system?
We are not giving [so much] energy into the system; we are just pouring green-house gases into the atmosphere, which in turn stop the planet from loosing energy at the rate it has dissipated it before. That's called green-house effect, because it acts as the glasses in a green house, preventing the heat from leaving the system, and increasing the average temperature.
It is not about human turning their air conditioners on and heating the atmosphere; it's about burning gas/coal/petrol to generate energy for those air conditioners (and cars, airplanes, industry, etc.) and increasing the level of green-house gases.
The only thing we normal people can do on an individual basis is try to live our lives in the most sustainable way possible. Of primary consideration is the location of where to live, as forest fires, flooding, drought, heat waves, and hurricanes are all increasing in magnitude. Sustainabble energy is important, as is renewable energy. Possessing a generator and solar array is essential, not only do they lower electricity bills, but they ensure life wil not be disrupted by outages. Similarly, storage and conservation of drinking water is also useful. Planting a decent size garden now days can save a family hundreds or even thousands dog dollars a year in food costs.
If one lives in an urban environment (as a majority of humanity now do), live within your means and build up a saving account to deal with unforeseen incidences (disasters, outbreaks, ...anything goes these days!). It pays to be prepared, one cannot say they were not warned. No need to turn into a gun nut and go all survivalist stocking 10 years of food in ones basement, but we clearly need to reevaluate how we live on a daily basis.
I bet you that it will get dark tonight, and then brighten up again tomorrow. Care to take my bet, or want to modify your broad-based claim?
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Do you realize that the underlying theory, the greenhouse effect, goes back 100 years? Global warming is not a new idea. 50 years ago there were people predicting that extra CO2 would cause temperature to rise. In the last 2 decades, we've seen the start of that, and it fits the theory quite well. Of course the earth is an incredibly complex thing, and there are millions of factors that also have some impact, but the foundation is pretty solid.
Considering that we know that CO2 traps heat, and we know that CO2 levels have gone up, and we know that global temperature has gone up, you need to come up with a really solid alternative explanation if you want to flat out deny a causal relationship between these facts.
As an outside observer, I'd say they didn't have much influence on environmental policy (and I'll ignore the extra baggage you've thrown in about war in an attempt to muddy the issue). Those "liberal" environmental policies that give you guys better air quality than shitholes in China came in thanks to Nixon. It seems Democrats got blocked every time they tried something similar even if both parties thought it was a good idea.
The scientists can't get the model to work quite right, and keep changing it.
So you look at a computation so complex that it takes multiple CPU-centuries to calculate wasn't 100% accurate the first time and the inputs weren't 100% complete at the very beginning, and you're surprised that it didn't create a 100% accurate solution on its first run? Don't you think that your expectations were just a tad high?
**OF COURSE** they keep changing it. They keep finding new ways to add additional data streams, better algorithms, new sources of data, additional variables to account for, etc. I'd start to wonder if they DIDN'T change it (them actually, there are various models in use). This is Science, not Scientology.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin