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Cold Spring Linked To Dramatic Sea Ice Loss
hrvatska writes "An article at Weather Underground reports that researchers have linked large snowstorms and cold spring weather across Britain and large parts of Europe and North America to the dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice. It is thought that the Arctic ice loss adds heat to the ocean and atmosphere, which shifts the position of the jet stream, allowing cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. Researchers expect that a warming Arctic ocean will drive more extreme weather in North America and Europe (abstract)."
Yep. Global warming is freezing our asses off...
Ummm... you can walk from Brooklyn to Queens in the summertime without too much trouble...
There's a reason most scientists use the more accurate term climate change.
Fundamentally, a stable climate is an illusion of the "short now". We think there's such a thing as "normal" temps because we just don't live very long, compared to a planet.
Even on a larger scale, the past 10,000 years have been an amazing anomaly, with a relatively stable climate not seen anywhere else in the data (and it's probably no coincidence that mankind happened to emerge technologically during this rare stable-ish window).
The simple truth about all this Climate Change debate? You don't have an informed opinion either way until you've really looked at the Vostok ice core data. Study the raw data for the past several 100k years yourself - you're intuition is no guide at all for how the climate normally behaves over time.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Consistent deviations from long established and statistically significant patterns are an indicator to people with a modest amount of rational scientific understanding that the climate system is increasingly getting out of whack. What's so hard to comprehend about that?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
So, do you think 1. Carbon doesn't absorb heat 2. Carbon in the atmosphere can't, for some reason, insulate the earth, trapping more heat 3. Combustion engines do not put out carbon 4. Burning of fossil fuels aren't significantly increasing carbon levels in the atmosphere 5. The carbon is getting taken out of the atmosphere at an increased level that corresponds to our increase in emissions or 6. That God or some higher power won't let the world change or 7. That using logic is a waste of time?
Honestly, I can't see many alternative hypotheses here that aren't ignoring reality. All arguments against it seem to be centered around "Nuh UH! It's NOT warming!" but I haven't really heard much talk about how that could not be the case. Carbon absorbs more heat and we're increasing the carbon doesn't seem to be under dispute. Being skeptical is good, but you don't get to reject hypotheses if you have no other way to explain the data.
Science has an amazing way of reinforcing crazy stupid by presenting contradicting, independently verifiable facts
I suppose you mean seemingly contradictory, when viewed on a superficial level without real understanding of the matter?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Of course, large-scale climactic changes over tens or hundreds of thousands of years are a red herring when evaluating the impact of hundred-year rapid timescale changes on human societies that need much longer to adapt without horrific violence and misery. We live in very different places/cities from where we did 10,000 or 100,000 years ago --- but pretty much in the same cities we had 100 years ago. Expecting the populations of entire nations and continents to just up-and-move over a few decades because habitable ranges have shifted (collapsing food and water supplies in once-fertile regions) doesn't play out so well in current geopolitics. As soon as you're ready to welcome a billion refugee immigrants, dislocated by famine, war, and poverty, into your own country, we can get complacent about compressing multi-thousand-year climactic cycles into human-scale time intervals.
Indeed. "Climate change" is an effective propaganda technique for enabling observation bias. Have any weird weather? It's climate change and all due to the evil humans and their fossil fuel based industrial societies.
As you might have guessed from my sarcasm, I don't buy at all that the phrase, "climate change" is somehow more accurate than anthropogenic global warming. Climate would change even if nothing particular was going on, just due to orbital dynamics of Earth around the Sun, volcanoes, and the subtle effects of continental drift.
Ok, I'm not saying that Global warming isn't happening, but you're just so off base I've got to correct you.
1. Everything absorbs heat (well almost everything)
2. There is no carbon in the atmosphere. It's Carbon dioxide, a GAS. One's an element, the others not. Christ. CO2 absorbs radiation from the sun and then re-radiates it in all directions. So heat that was at one time moving linearly, is now diffuse and goes in all directions. Radiation that traveled down to the earths surface and was then reflected back my ice, snow, water, or whatever, would normally have an unimpeded path back to space. But when it hits the atmosphere, the atmosphere again diffuses the radiation. Some gasses can absorb more than others. The majority of our atmosphere is made up of mostly Nitrogen followed by oxygen. They do not absorb a lot of radiation. By far, the fast majority of greenhouse effect is generated by water vapor (70% or more) followed by CO2. CO2 accounts for less than 0.04% of the atmosphere.
3. Combustion engines do produce carbon, it's deposited on valves, cylinders, exhaust pipes... lucky for us ITS NOT A GAS.
4. They don't, so lets pretend for a second you know what CO2 is, and understand that burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide and not carbon. That's fine... but the fact of the matter is burning fossil fuels doesn't significantly increase CO2 in the atmosphere. Even diehard global warming supporting scientists wouldn't say that. They'd argue that the modest increase our activity is creating is dangerous. But futhermore, CO2 isn't the biggest problem. Water vapor is. The soot from Coal burning power plants, factories and poorly maintained car exhausts are an even bigger problem. Soot gets into the atmosphere and gives water droplets something to cling to... they increase water vapor in the atmosphere. But scientists don't want the issue to get swept under the rug, after all, CO2 is still a problem if not quite as bad. So lets get of all fossil fuels they say.
5. God damn it learn what carbon is!
6. If there was a God, he'd have stuck you dead by now.
7. What in your entire previous six points had anything to do with logic? You don't even know what CARBON is, how the greenhouse effect works, and you're trying to school someone on their stupidity in regards to both?
Last month the cold weather was because warm air from the south rose over the arctic cold air, thus forcing the colder arctic air down to the southern latitudes. So now it is because last summer there was less ice that froze over long before spring ever came. So how again did the ice covering all the arctic now has caused a colder spring? Did anyone tell these guys that the arctic is still frozen over as we speak? It's not open water. So why is the jet stream being affected? I'm just not clear on all this.
I do know one thing. It's still cold outside and the sow is still on the ground. How is this different from any other Canadian winter or spring for that matter? I'm just lucky enough to remember the weather before all this global warming came along. So how is it different again? How is getting snow in the winter anything unusual? How is snow on the ground in March different? How is maple sugar season changed?
Only problem with this is that the costs are already showing up in peoples insurances.
Ever hear of moral hazard? The US federal government has millions of dollars for disaster relief from floods, but can't find thousands of dollars for disaster prevention. They are effectively paying the world to build in the US's flood-prone areas. Insurance companies won't touch that.
not over the water you can't
Exactly. There is no water between Brooklyn and Queens (they are both on Long Island). I LOLed.
This is just the latest in a series of published work finding that weakening ocean and land temperature contrasts between high and mid northern latitudes is having a profound effect on the Jet Stream. Search for jet stream and arctic on Google Scholar and they'll pop up. They all show that the poles live and die by the circumpolar winds that 'lock' the cold air in those high latitudes (Antarctica included by the way!). If those circumpolar winds diminish, then the cold can effectively 'escape'. In the Northern Hemisphere, it results in the jet stream becoming extremely contorted, sets up 'blocking' and we get these long periods of abnormal weather (extra cold in late winter/early spring, extra heat in late summer/early fall?) The weather channel has a great rundown of the jet stream *today*. Illustrates it perfectly. http://www.weather.com/video/forecast-for-your-spring-35814 Lets just thank our lucky stars that Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean, and not an ocean surrounded by continents, like the Arctic. This fundamental difference means the southern circumpolar winds have a huge contrast to work from with the gigantic ice fields of the continent versus the far away lands of Southern America, Oceania, and Africa. Ironically, the ozone hole actually makes the Antarctic colder and the circumpolar winds stronger... so as it fixes itself as human CFC emissions dimish, those winds will start to weaken and warming will be able to creep in there as well. But at least that buys us time. Were the Arctic and Antarctic equal, global warming would have likely been much more immediate. Though who knows, maybe that would have spurred us to action before today (which is still never?) The world and science that attempts to explain it is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time. Lets hope we can get our acts together and change our course before we cause so much change to our atmosphere and oceans that we are unable to avoid the clear and present dangers now on tap.
Global warming and cooling aren't a thing, climate change, however, is. Hot places get hotter, cold places get colder, and the bits in the middle will get considerably worse than both combined with the colliding weather fronts.
And what in the world gives you the idea that this sort of "climate change" is going on? Increases in greenhouse gases lead to some degree of global warming not hot gets hotter, cold gets colder. WE have enough trouble debating this issue without imaginary theories coming in.
Oddly, this is more stable than the North-east of America, that place gets whacked silly with storms, and it will get considerably worse in the next decade, not even century.
The Gulf of Mexico provides warmth and moisture which is what you need for exciting storms such as the north east region of the US probably has seen for millions of years.
Katrina was a freak, but that last catastrophe of a storm is just progressive weather change now.
That part of the world sees dozens of such cyclones every year. There was nothing odd about Katrina other than a city happened to be in the way.
There is even a chance of another mini ice-age in the north areas again.
Apparently, glacial periods have been the norm for many millions of years. Unless we do something radical, say like dumping massive quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or greatly widening the Bering Strait, we will see another full-blown glacial advance.
I find it really bizarre that Slashdot, a website that usually has intelligent discussion, is filled with climate change naysayers.
Is this real life?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record
The 9 warmest years on record happened this century. The Earth is heating up, and rapidly.
Who the fuck are you people?
According to the most recent SST anomaly map found here, much of the Gulf Stream is anomalously warmer than expected.
Seriously,
weather = super hot = evidence of global warming
weather = freezing cold = evidence of global warming
weather = no snow = evidence of global warming
weather = record snow = evidence of global warming
Global Warming Skeptic exclaims "weather not correlating to global warming" = Global Warming Advocate "weather isn't an indicator of climate change" Weather hot, no snow, etc. And suddenly, Global Warming Advocates use weather as an indication of global warming. Which is it?
Global Warming Advocacy argues ALL changes in weather point to, and are explained by global warming. The only proof we can possibly have against global warming, would be a decade long period in which zero change in average temp, percipitation, ice, or what not occurred. (And frankly, I'd laugh my butt off if that actually happened and we went through 10 years with zero climate change - I'd also say there'd be proof that there is a God and that he has a warped sense of humor.)
But the reality is, that global warming advocates put forth a non-testable hypothesis that can explain everything. And has zero way of being countered per scientific method. And all of this is over a mere 1/2 to 1 1/2 degree variation in temperature. With questionable records at that. Furthermore, we know it was much warmer 150,000 years ago when much of the arctic ice was gone
Just some comments per Wikipedia
"NASA, found that the “rate of warming in the Arctic over the last 20 years is eight times the rate of warming over the last 100 years"
[Okay, a 120 years geologically speaking is a blink in the record.]
"In September 2012, sea ice reached its smallest size ever."
[Really, history records it as having disappeared completely a number of times. Do we mean smallest in modern history? Cause scientific evidence has shown the ice cap has had significant melts several times over the last 2.8 millions years (which is still a short time span geologically speaking)]
I'm a geologist. Yes, looking on that kind of timescale (or vastly longer) gives you a useful perspective. On the big scale of things, is life on Earth going to end because of anthropogenic climate change? No. It's seen much worse. Is the expected change going to be worse in magnitude or rate than any other climate event in Earth history? Heck, no. Or even as long as humans have been around? Again, no. Humans grew up as a species through multiple glacial-interglacial cycles. We're adapted to them, at least during the times we mostly lived in caves. The waxing and waning of continental ice sheets and the realization that (for example) the place I'm at used to be under a couple of km of ice 20000 years ago kind of puts things in perspective.
Meanwhile, on regular human scales rather than the scale that geologists usually consider, the scale of change expected over the next century is rather frighteningly fast, and it's going to affect temperature, precipitation, all sorts of things. Human societies and agriculture are a lot more fragile than life as a whole is, or humanity as a species is, so saying "It's not so bad when looking at the long view" isn't really much of a consolation. We haven't driven through a significant climate change during industrial times. Human history has shown that these kind of relatively mild changes will likely provoke mass migrations, famine, and often wars over limited resources as the local conditions change for the better or worse. Maybe industrialized society will make us a bit more robust to it, but it's still going to be stressful. You can't solve problems easily if you're (for example) turning parts of the midwest USA back into increasingly arid sand dunes, or drowning significant coastal areas. It can be done, but it's expensive and there are practical limits where it doesn't pay off even if it is technically possible.
So, yeah, do get a longer perspective, but keep in mind that 100k years is freaking long compared to the duration (so far) of modern human society. Even the transition from full-blown glacial maximum to the interglacial we are in now still took several thousand years to complete.
The analogy I've often used is going down a ski slope. Sure, long-term it's a gentle slope going downhill that is quite manageable. But that doesn't mean you can ignore the smaller-scale ski jump or the trees that are right in front of you. You have to pay attention to both. And if you can't deal with the short-term stuff, the longer-term stuff is kind of irrelevant. We'll deal with long-term glacial-interglacial cyclicity eventually, if we make it through the next couple of centuries as an industrial society without killing most of each other off. Otherwise, maybe it's back to subsistence in caves for a small fraction of us that survive. We do know that works long-term. Industrialized society is still early in the game.
Wow, thats about as much intellectual drivel as I would expect out of a political prisoner fresh out of labour-camp.
I see you fit the profile quite nicely. Let's take a look.
Climate Change is an acknowledgment that the Earth has many interconnected systems that can be aversely or even positively affected by changes to the environment.
The word I was criticizing was "accuracy". This bullshit isn't accurate. Anthropogenic global warming is accurate. It describes the key characteristics of the phenomena, namely, that it is man-caused and that it is a global warming.
Also a tacit acknowledgement that once it occurs its nearly impossible to reverse. It just so happens that it also nullifies any unfortunate and misguided pseudo-intellectualism vaulted or supported by the "Global Warming" meme of the 80s.
That's an awful lot of pointless verbiage for a supposedly "tacit" acknowledgement. No, there is no such acknowledgement. "Climate change" simply means a change in climate. All the rest of your claim is completely unfounded and not implied by the label.
the best you can do is question the motives of "scientists" to prove your point
But of course. There are trillions of dollars riding on convincing the public that AGW is dire enough that we need to spend a lot of money. That's many times what you'd need to completely buy the field of climatology.
Here in NW Europe, we're being told we're kept warm in the winter by the "warm waters of the Gulf Stream". Unfortunately, we don't literally bathe in those waters. Heat is transported by SW winds that blow across them, picking up moisture which is then rained out over us and releasing latent heat.
This unseasonably weather is nothing to do with the Gulf stream weakening, it's simply the winds are blowing in the opposite direction (from the cold, dry land). Why they are prolonged is to do with the jet stream position's much further to the south. The mid-latitude jet's a product of the atmosphere's thermal gradient (and some orographically introduced wobbles) and its odd, prolonged position could quite conceivably be to do with Arctic sea ice loss.