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2012 Another Record-Setter For Weather, Fits Climate Forecasts
Layzej writes "The Associated Press reports: 'In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes. As 2012 began, winter in the U.S. went AWOL. Spring and summer arrived early with wildfires, blistering heat and drought. And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy. Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records. 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record in the United States. Worldwide, the average through November suggests it will be the eighth warmest since global record-keeping began in 1880 and will likely beat 2011 as the hottest La Nina year on record. America's heartland lurched from one extreme to the other without stopping at "normal." Historic flooding in 2011 gave way to devastating drought in 2012. But the most troubling climate development this year was the melting at the top of the world. Summer sea ice in the Arctic shrank to 18 percent below the previous record low. These are "clearly not freak events," but "systemic changes," said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. "With all the extremes that, really, every year in the last 10 years have struck different parts of the globe, more and more people absolutely realize that climate change is here and already hitting us."'"
on the bright side..."end of the world" forecasts were proven wrong when things seemed to go on as normal today...leading end of the world theorists to re-evaluate their models.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.
We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.
That ice age was the expected result of the "natural cycles" you idiots like to babble endlessly about. The fact that we're going the opposite direction should have you seriously concerned.
Hey, if FOX is reporting on Climate change, then you *know* we're in trouble.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
I thought none of the climate change models allowed for accurate short term forecasting? I've been told not to expect short term forecasting (as in, the next five years, the next year, and certainly not the next few months) to be accurately predictable from the models and predictions of climate change experts. Are we working off predictions made ten years ago? I guess I'm confused as to why 2012 was perfectly on track with predictions.
One of the largest threats to global warming (for America at least) is the continued lowering of water levels for the Mississippi River. Historians can correct or amend me here, but empires rise and fall on the strength of their rivers. The US is no different, and should the Mississippi fail then there will be serious strategic and economic threats to the security and health of the nation.
Not good.
I disagree. The fact that FOX is covering it is incredibly telling. When "head in the sand" individuals are tuning around in their admission to a problem, it is a good way to convince other "head in the sand" individuals.
-- MyLongNickName
I would rather here about this from Fox News than most anyone else. Just like I would rather hear about Obama issues from MSNBC and the NFL being the best American sports league from the MLB & NBA.
Science is not a religion, it is not less valuable when it gets updated. Your belief not withstanding.
Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it. Now, the same idiots
[citation needed that these are the same people]
are telling us about global warming (whoops...climate change).
Boy you sure are clever. And alone. Climate science and models have progressed extensively since 1975.
The earth goes through cycles....and it is billions of years old. 5-10 years of data is but a blink in cosmic time.
Those cycles you speak of normally take thousands of years to progress, giving larger life forms enough time to migrate and evolve and gradually change their patterns so that they can, you know, survive. When you start to see those averages change more quickly, you should be worried about the larger life forms (hell, bacteria and cockroaches will probably benefit). But, you know, I'm asking you to pull your head out of your ass and yet even when Fox News reports that things were pretty shitty this year, you dismiss it with parroted narrative.
You're a serious part of the problem when others are trying to discuss rational ways to curb this disturbing trend. But, hey, you read a TIME magazine article in 1975 and that makes you smarter than people who devote their lives to this.
My work here is dung.
You guys do understand the difference between a Foxnews article, and an AP Wire article, right?
Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.
Yes, but that was when they measured temperatures using a few dozen thermometers spread around the country and wrote the data in little log books using pencils. They also hadn't developed any decent methods for gathering historical temperature data.
Now we've got weather satellites providing real time, worldwide temperature data with a resolution of a few meters. We can measure polar ice coverage from the sky, polar ice thickness from underneath, Greenland's glacier flow rates, etc., etc. We also have millions of years of temperature/CO2 data from ice cores in the Antarctic, all cross referenced with other data sets like ancient tree ring data so we can make fairly accurate guesses about past temperatures.
No sig today...
Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.
You were also listening to disco at the roller rink. Shows what you know.
I'm guessing the cheque from the denialists was late this month. This is just a warning shot and normal service will be resumed fairly soon...
No sig today...
That would be the same 2012 that continues the trend in the IPCC AR5 report, which shows temperatures lower than predicted by any of the models. That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?
That would the the same 2012 with a drought that joins many others from the past 80 years. Guess what, droughts happen periodically, and this one was very much a local phenomenon within central North America.
We just survived the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Whew. Quick, let's panic about something else!
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Global temperatures have not risen - they have risen more slowly than predicted. Well, that's me convinced!
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Really,
You think an ice age is preferable to a gradually warming climate?
I don't think you understand just how gradual a natural climate cycle has been for Earth. Look at this graph of antarctic temperature changes. Notice how it is windowed to -6 to +4 degrees Celsius within today's temperature and how long those changes normally took. If we speed that same change that took 10,000 years up to 200 years and it only ever increases, what exactly do you think will happen to Earth?
Animals and humans aren't going to have time to adapt or evolve in predicted scenarios.
My work here is dung.
'In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes
Or "reality," as us old geezers prefer to call it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Disclaimer: I am honestly not trolling here. I really wonder about this.
TL/DR version: Can we really change our behavior, or just start planning for a worst-case scenario?
Should we be trying to combat climate change in the sense that is it really possible? I think that, as a species, we would rather let people in the future (even if they are future versions of ourselves) deal with the problems rather than take hit in the near term for long term benefits.
Coupled with the fact that the most populated countries have a majority of their population relatively poor, I think it is impractical to expect them to stop burning fossil fuels and force clean energy solutions that might be more expensive/impractical (I believe that the industrialized nations consume most of the energy now, but with India and China becoming more economically important and successful, they will also start consuming more energy).
I saw the article about Thorium reactors a few days ago, but I doubt that we can stop burning things for energy in a short term. With all the infrastructure and interests of powerful groups to keep us on fossil fuels (In the words of comedian John Oliver: BP going green? Only in their logo), I don't expect major change in the near future.
Maybe I am too cynical and need to have hope for the future, but I wonder if we shouldn't start planning backup mechanisms to permanently help people when changes happen - right now, we seem to be doing short-term "deal with this disaster now" fixes.
[citation needed that these are the same people]
I believe the problem here is that even it these had been the same people, when researchers proposed that Earth might be returning into a new ice age, their claims were refuted within two years or so and the whole thing - at least within the scientific community - was declared a failed idea. The newer suggestion that the temperatures are in fact rising too quickly has been found to be nearly impossible to falsify, and it's more than a quarter of a century now. So if the GP is trying to make us believe that the evidence is ambiguous and not pointing in any specific direction, he should think again.
Ezekiel 23:20
I don't thinks a sociopath like yourself to care. We'll be happy if you don't develop a taste for human flesh.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
But do most denialists deny that climate change is actually happening? Or just question how much man contributes to it and by what measures? Realize that in the past Siberia flash froze for some reason (probably not man) and that Iraq used to be the "fertile crescent". So the question is, are we the cause of these events or do they just happen despite us?
That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting. Saves tons of gas and solves traffic issues. I don't think much would change if I went into the office 3 days a week instead of 5, except the amount of gas I purchase.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If we are dumping shit everywhere and burning carbon because it's "cheap" we can do something about it. Stop burning carbon and move to renewable and nuclear energy is something right? Heavier regulation and requirements for recycling and fines for polluters is something right? Reducing the stripping forests is something right? Severely limiting strip mining is something right?
It's hard to say if you are trolling or just an idiot. Claiming there is nothing you can do about it is worse than claiming a problem does not exist in my opinion.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The denialists have shifted their arguments as the evidence for climate change has become stronger and as we have been subject to daily "weather" that shows that climate change is happening and actually exceeding the "worst case" models.
At first they were just denialists stating that it isn't happening. As the climate has actually started to change and we have record heat, drought, flood, etc. they it has become harder to deny that climate change is happening. So, they have shifted their arguments to "we didn't cause it and there is nothing we can do about it". They cite a lot of dubious "evidence" (all of which has been debunked by actual scientists).
There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose) but the denialists take the position that it's not our fault and we can't do anything. As usual, it pays to follow the money and you find the fossil fuel industries behind all of the denialist "science" and find them spreading all of this FUD.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting.
Sorry. Not going to happen on any grand scale. You'll will have to shower and dress regularly for some time yet.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
Click on the intermediate tab after finishing beginner.
Not at all. You have a problem with graph scales, which is fair, because everyone who draws a graph apparently sucks at graph scales.
The hockey stick graph is over a fairly long time scale. As a result, variations on a short time scale are invisible. It makes global warming look like a very fast temperature increase. It is, compared to the historical rate of temperature increases over long time scales.
On shorter timescales, there's a huge amount of variability -- seasonal, year-to-year, El Nino cycles, etc. The effect of global warming is relatively small on these time scales, resulting in some years being particularly hot and others being not so hot. Incidentally, this graph is pretty popular, too, and looks like a gradually-increasing noisy sinusoid.
The influence of global warming on short timescales, relative to the influence of other effects, is small enough that if you pick appropriate endpoints for a graph, you can say all sorts of inaccurate and misleading things about trends. ("In the past 13.5 years, the average temperature has actually decreased!") You'll see those graphs a lot, too.
There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose)
Electricity generation produces more CO2 than telecommuting. A few more nuclear power stations would reduce emissions more than people giving up their SUVs would (I think the "you'll have to drive a really crappy small car!!" argument is also put out by the oil companies to help the people deny...)
See: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html
No sig today...
...plus if people stayed at home they'd all be using individual air-conditioners/heaters/lights rather than the shared ones at the office.
That might offset the benefit of them not driving to work.
No sig today...
The denialists sound more like scientists to me...
If you think global warming is all the conservatives' fault, you're not really thinking about the problem at all.
Because that is how science works. If science is "painful" to them maybe they shouldn't be doing it. I'm probably more educated in the field than most being a scientist doing other stuff and having read much of the IPCC reports, and I would agree that AGW is currently the most plausible explanation for the observed rise in global average temperature. The rest of the stuff is interesting but not predicted with any accuracy at all (in the models I have seen). For example, from the news article (which probably misquotes the actual researchers), here we see the failure of the model to predict things taken as evidence of its success (wtf):
"There were other weather extremes no one predicted: A European winter cold snap that killed more than 800 people. A bizarre summer windstorm called a derecho in the U.S. mid-Atlantic that left millions without power. Antarctic sea ice that inched to a record high. More than a foot of post-Thanksgiving rain in the western U.S. Super Typhoon Bopha, which killed hundreds of people in the Philippines and was the southernmost storm of its kind."
Even with regards to global temps, the fact the "believers" needed to be forced to double check the validity of their sensor readings belies an unscientific attitude.
Like I said. You're a sociopath. We don't expect you to.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
That is a meme big carbon has been pushing for a while, and is likely nonsense. We have seen, with moderately little effort and in a reasonably short time, significant rejuvenation of the great lakes, replishment of the ozone layer, reductions in acid rain and particulate emissions.
None are worthy of a âoeMission Accomplishedâ banner yet, but we already experience the benefits of the work in progress.
In each case, the conventional wisdom was that the damage wasnâ(TM)t reversible and the efforts would be herculean.
The herculean effort was over-riding the well paid campaigns to suppress any effort to address these problems. In retrospect, executing all of the advertising professionals and Phd-for-hires would have saved a lot of time, money and damage.
People have a history of innovation, and I doubt that this is beyond us. We have to get fat, dumb and happy out of the way.
You need to understand the following to understand why the turnaround. From 1960-1990, 2-3% per decade less sunlight as reached the Earth's surface. In that same time period, global average temperatures maintained or increased. So... despite the fact that the Earth received less energy from the Sun for 30 years straight, it never cooled as expected.
I'll let that sink in for a moment. Climate is driven by the Sun's energy. The Sun's energy is reduced. The climate, with less energy from the sun, should get colder. But, it didn't.
Now, the trend of global dimming is reversing. And, the climate is warming up faster than it should purely from global brightening. Many scientists believe that the ice age we should have gotten in the 1970s and 1980s was masked by global warming happening back then. But, now, we just have global warming.
I won't lie: there may be people who are jumping of the bandwagons to keep them in the spotlight. I don't know this James Hansen. The one thing to point out is that at least is willing to change his views to match the evidence. Unfortunately, that's a very rare thing today.
"Don't mind me cutting myself on Occam's Razor"
in 1975, when I was in High school. The thing that makes me suspicious is that the same people -- James Hansen in particular -- were the major alarmists for an ice age back then
Strange isn't it, that despite all the AGW deniers in the world, not a single one has put this "fact" on Wikipedia, with a citation.
Silly old Wikipedia seems to be of the opinion that James Hamsen was studying Venus right through the 1970s.
Clearly roc97007 must be entrusted as the world's fact keeper.
Mindless conservatives may not have caused it, but they consistently restrict or obstruct discussion that would lead to mitigation of the process. Just look at the anti-global-warming pseudo-science being pout out by shills for the fossil fuel companies. Here are just a few:
The Greening Earth Society: Founded in the late 80’s by Western Fuels - a coal fired power lobby representing numerous corporations—to promote the claim that increasing greenhouse gases are good for the earth. They are best known for a widely distributed “documentary” called “The Greening of Planet Earth” in which it was claimed that global warming was going to turn the earth into a lush paradise of plant life and crop yields. Virtually all of the content at their web site (www.greeningearthsociety.org) and in their publications has been prepared by two or three skeptic consultants (Most notably Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels) and relies on science that has been carefully edited to give the appearance of support for their thesis. Western Fuels and the GES share office space and pretty much overlap in their board of directors, making them all but synonymous with each other.
The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP): Founded in the early 90’s by S. Fred Singer with seed capital and office space provided by the Unification Church (the “Moonies”). Today SEPP’s funding has come mainly from the fossil fuel industry and various Far-Right foundations including the Bradley, Smith Richardson, and Forbes foundations. The SEPP, which according to its web site advocates a "no-regrets policy of energy efficiency and market-based conservation", has been one of the more vociferous skeptic fronts. They have been active in numerous political lobbying efforts and public relations campaigns aimed at discrediting global warming, the link between CFC’s and ozone depletion, and even lung cancer and second-hand smoke (Singer has also consulted for the tobacco industry). Singer was also the driving force behind the 1995 and 1997 Leipzig Declarations opposing the global warming scientific consensus and the Kyoto Protocol. SEPP claimed that 140 “climate scientists” had signed at least one of them. There were numerous problems with the credentials of many signatories. At least one independent investigation was only able to verify 20 as having any valid climate science background.
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC): Founded in 1989 by 46 corporations and trade associations representing a number of industries, but mainly auto manufacturers and fossil fuels. They have been involved in numerous well-funded lobbying efforts, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns targeting mainstream global warming science, and several flawed economic studies on the cost of global warming mitigation. In the face of ever mounting evidence they began to unravel in the late 90’s when several members left the coalition (most notably British Petroleum, Daimler Chrysler, Texaco, and General Motors). Today they are defunct.
The Information Council on the Environment (ICE): Founded in 1991 the National Coal Association, Western Fuels, and Edison Electric—all coal or coal-fired power lobbies. They are best known for a public disinformation campaign that made use of four prominent skeptic consultants (Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, S. Fred Singer, and Sherwood Idso), a public relations firm (William Bracy Inc.), and a polling firm (Cambridge Reports). According to internal Cambridge Reports memos the goal of the campaign was to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact”. Based on the research summarized in these memos print and broadcast advertising spots were then targeted specifically at "young, low-income women" and "older, less-educated men from large families who are not typically active information seekers”. Emphasis was placed on districts which rely on coal-fired power and heat, and nationally syndicated conservative talk shows that are
"They're not interested in science, they're interested in having an argument to support their belief. They only change when they realize they look foolish and the only change is to a different argument."
The type of person that makes up that "they" is found in the "believer" camp as well. These people are largely irrelevant to policy-making as they will adopt the opinions of their peer group consensus or chosen authority figures. As you say, such people are not interested in science, and will not be convinced by arguments from science. This is the same problem with using logic to argue with those who believe in a God. The beliefs are not based on logic/evidence to begin with, but social heuristics.
Eventually they run out of 'factual' arguments (remember stuff like "volcanoes produce more CO2 than man"? Sounds factual, except the pesky facts are wrong...) and start using arguments based on false logic ("I was warmer before without man, therefore man isn't causing it this time around...").
Very little of scientific evidence (if any) consists of "facts". Every observation is subject to uncertainty (measurement error, etc), and every theory is subject to even greater uncertainty since it propagates from the numerous observations, often relies on unstated assumptions, and must be compared to a multitude of alternative hypotheses with non-zero probability. In fact, most modern scientists interpret evidence using a logical fallacy due to a misunderstanding of statistics: (see http://i49.tinypic.com/2sbodup.png)
The actual skeptics (not the followers or manipulators of public opinion) question whether these sources of uncertainty have truly been investigated to the extent that the evidence in support of the theory/model is sufficient to be used to wisely inform public policy. There is plenty of evidence out there (see example above about valid sensor data) showing that the "believers" have indeed failed to accomplish this on their own due to overconfidence.
The entire debate is largely due to a failure of the climate science community to control those in their field with big mouths from running them to the media while there are still plausible alternatives and major sources of uncertainty to be dealt with. This is damaging the credibility of scientists from all fields.
And how are "we" going to do that? Do you think China or India or Africa or Russia give a damn about what "we" decide? European and American voters get irate if their economies aren't growing fast enough; do you think they're going to reelect any government that's going to spend tons of money on reducing carbon emissions?
"We" can't even bring ourselves to helping refugees, or living up to our international aid commitments, or making many our drug patents available for generic use overseas, actions that are trivial compared to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. Look at the lack of results of Doha or all the other previous conferences. "We" have been importing cheap "shit" from South America and Asia, knowing full well that the way it is produced is destructive of the environment and rain forest, and nobody gives a damn.
The idiot is you, because you believe that global warming is somehow different than all the other issues that we have failed to act on. With the current political situation in the world, everybody looks out for their own interests first. Given the current political situation, there is nothing any government can do to reduce global carbon emissions meaningfully.
Carbon emissions will fall on their own when technology makes burning coal and oil obsolete. I think that's going to happen within a few decades. But it will happen with or without government intervention.
Learn to control the weather, if it's broken, then fix it. I fully agree that people's behavior will not change, it's a lost cause, which is why we should start R&D on geoengineering as early as possible.
The ozone destroyers, acid rain and particulate emissions all have relatively short lifetimes in the atmosphere. All it takes to to reduce the damage they caused is to reduce or eliminate emissions of the things that caused them and they wash out in a few years (or decades in the case of ozone destroyers). That isn't the case with CO2 or more generally carbon in the active carbon cycle. Once it is there it takes thousands of years for natural processes to reduce the level significantly. That means on human time scales it's close to irreversible. Even if we do things to actively remove carbon from the carbon cycle it's hard to imagine we could do it any where nearly as fast as we put it in. Once we stop adding carbon to the cycle the changes will start slowing down after 30 or 40 years but even then it will take hundreds of years for the ice caps to catch up with the forcing. The other thing that's irreversible is species extinction. Once they're gone, they're gone.
So you're right, we have to overcome the efforts to suppress addressing the problem but that just stops it from getting worse (after a few decades). The changes already wrought won't go away anytime soon.