The classical period for climatological studies is 30 years and has been for a long time. And there hasn't been a 19+ year pause in warming anyway. If you analyze it statistically there's no significant difference in the rate of rise before or after the 1997/1998 El Nino. 2014 was the warmest year in the historical record and the rest of 2015 would have to be quite cold for 2015 not to blow that record to smithereens. An unlikely occurrence with the El Nino still building.
Funny but most of the people I see bringing that up are on the contrarian side of the anthropogenic global warming debate. There may have been some idiots who said that but I doubt they were scientists. What I've heard from scientists lately is they expect the number of hurricanes to remain about the same but the average intensity may increase over time. There have been some bad hurricanes in the past decade but by chance they haven't hit the US mainland. It's been a very active year for typhoons in the Western Pacific this year with 6 super typhoons so far.
There may be some idiots who make those sorts of claims but if you asked a real scientist about it they would probably say that it is not proof that the Earth is not warming. That it's just another piece of data in the growing accumulation of weather data. That part of studying climate is looking at aggregates of the data over time to discover how the climate is changing.
And a word about snow. In general the warmer it is the more snow you get (up to the point where it gets too warm to fall as snow of course). The warmer the atmosphere is the more water vapor it can hold which means more potential for heavier snowfall. There are no doubt exceptions to that generality but I'd bet they are relatively rare.
Grin. Of course you're right but they can't say that explicitly. Thus my statement. Of course the GOP's big problem is the changing demographics in this country and their failure to keep up with them. I strange really. Most of the Hispanics I know are pretty conservative so if they just dropped the anti-immigrant rhetoric they'd probably get a lot more of their votes.
Plants... they consume CO2, which seems to be the big issue in climate change.
How about projects to plant more plants in cities globally? Like forcing coal-powered power plants to surround their plant with plants? Plan to plant more plants in your plants.
Plants can help but considering that we're daily burning an amount of fossil fuels equivalent to centuries or millennia of plant growth accumulation it can't fix the problem in any relevant time span.
Because the climate models we have now do a poor job of predicting weather, we don't know yet how big the carbon problem is.
It takes a special brand of ignorance to put down climate models for doing a poor job of predicting weather when that is something they were never intended to do in the first place.
Do you have any idea how much adjusting they have to do to derive satellite temperatures? It's an order of magnitude more than for the surface temperature measurements. In the first place satellites don't measure temperatures directly but rather the microwave emissions of O2 molecules in the atmosphere. Then they convert that to a temperature for an amorphous blob of the atmosphere. The adjustments they have to make include adjustments for orbital drift and decay of the satellites, deterioration of the sensors, the change in satellites as they get replaced. One of the scientists involved in the RSS satellite temperature group says he trusts the surface temperature measurements more than his own satellite measurements.
Latest news is they were not US Marines but one US Air Force and one Oregon National Guard plus the civilian. But you're right, their actions are all to their credit.
Changes in CO2 levels will always lead to changes in global temperature regardless of the source of the change in CO2. CO2 changes from human activity have been happening for a long time (thousands of years) but mostly until after WW II they were small enough to not be particularly noticeable.
As far as an 18 year pause any rigorous statistical analysis shows the warming trend for the past 18 years is indistinguishable from the warming trend since 1970. The pause is all in the eye of the deniers. Here's the analysis by a statistician.
It looks like you still don't get it that water vapor levels are strictly reactive to conditions in the atmosphere subject to the availability of water to be evaporated. Water vapor cannot drive climate change and so cannot drive runaway warming on its own.
If a volcano erupts, we agree it emits aerosols into the atmosphere. We agree that these aerosols contribute to cooling. We disagree on what water vapor does. If water vapor does as you say, and contributes to cooling, how does the atmosphere recover?
We agree in the short term the aerosols will go away. In that time though, you claim water vapor will have been contributing to more cooling. By this point the planet is considerably cooler than the few years ago the eruption occurred. That means that water vapor will be contributing to more continued cooling and a runaway cycle.
When the aerosols drop out of the atmosphere the insolation reaching the surface is what recovers. Water vapor is strictly reactive to the conditions in the atmosphere so when more insolation reaches the surface of water bodies there is more evaporation and water vapor increases. Because water vapor is strictly reactive to the conditions of the atmosphere there is no way it can drive climate change. It merely reaches an equilibrium dictated by the current conditions.
Add to that the current satellite data shows no statistically significant warming for 18 out of the 65 years that anthropogenic warming was even possible, it's no wonder that the "consensus" has fallen from 97% to the 50's range, and the popular opinion puts climate change near last.
I don't think that's possible since satellite temperature data is only about 36 years old at this point. Among climate scientists I doubt the consensus has changed much at all.
... why is the CO2 increasing rather than plants doing more converting and keeping the number stable?
Because the fossil fuels we are burning are the result of thousands and millions of years of plant accumulation so it will take a similar amount of time for plants the reabsorb the CO2.
Except we don't know that interaction with near the confidence you claim. The prevailing theory is that Water Vapor, which accounts for ~80% of the greenhouse effect, is short lived and there for NOT an important long term feedback mechanism.Observation however shows that after volcanic eruptions shift the global energy balance abruptly, the decreasing temperature leads to rapid feedbacks bringing the global energy balance back to 'normal'. The predominant mechanism being water vapor. So at a minimum we have witnessed repeatedly that in response to lowered temperature, water vapor acts as a negative feedback to warm things up. Luckier still for us, it doesn't continue on as a warming feedback as we approach the current global norms, it tapers off.
Large volcanic eruptions shift the global energy balance by injecting aerosols (primarily SO2) into the stratosphere where they reflect more sunlight increasing the albedo of the Earth. The reason the effect doesn't last long is that the aerosols are short lived and come back out of the atmosphere in 2 or 3 years. It has nothing to do with water vapor feedback. By cooling the atmosphere large volcanic eruptions reduce the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
The point about water vapor in the atmosphere is that it's limited by temperatures. It the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor then some of it will rain out. Water vapor can't drive climate change because it's a strictly reactive gas at the temperatures found in the atmosphere.
Also, clouds can be both a negative and a positive feedback depending on where and when they're found. They may block and reflect incoming sunlight but they also block radiation coming from ground level. Ever notice how much warmer a cloudy night is than a clear night usually? Scientists studying clouds effects on global warming find them to most likely be a slightly positive feedback.
This is why no-one trusts the media. I doubt even the most fervent anti-CC campaigner believes this to be true. And while I don't think climate change itself is a hoax, I'm far less convinced that it's a death sentence (e.g. as far as I know we've had higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past without all life dying).
The issue isn't all life dying off. That's not going to happen. I don't even think homo sapiens will go extinct. We are a very adaptable species.
The issue is whether our modern high tech civilization can survive the changes that are coming and even if it can what the cost will be as opposed to the cost of doing something about it in the first place.
That's a huge assumption on your part that you would have thousands of examples. What do you base that assumption on?
The names of people who have voted is a public record. You can get that list and start going through it to verify that the people actually voted and that they are actually eligible to vote. If you're too lazy to do that legwork that's your problem.
Here in Oregon I vote on a paper ballot, not a machine. The county (who run elections in this state) mails me my paper ballot at least 2 weeks before the election. I mark it and put it in the privacy envelope then put that in the outer envelope and sign my name to it and deliver it to a ballot drop off location or mail it.
But we do have some machines in the county elections offices for the sake of handicapped voters who can't use the regular system easily. There is no point in trying to hack them since so few votes are cast on them.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that voting machines are an abomination but I would accept a vote printing machine as long as I can hold the printed ballot in my hand, confirm it is correctly marked and personally deliver it to the ballot box.
She got caught. Good. I want to see prosecution of people who commit voter fraud. But are you assuming that there must be hundreds or thousands of people who did the same thing without getting caught? Enough to materially affect the election? Seems like a big stretch to me.
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The classical period for climatological studies is 30 years and has been for a long time. And there hasn't been a 19+ year pause in warming anyway. If you analyze it statistically there's no significant difference in the rate of rise before or after the 1997/1998 El Nino. 2014 was the warmest year in the historical record and the rest of 2015 would have to be quite cold for 2015 not to blow that record to smithereens. An unlikely occurrence with the El Nino still building.
Funny but most of the people I see bringing that up are on the contrarian side of the anthropogenic global warming debate. There may have been some idiots who said that but I doubt they were scientists. What I've heard from scientists lately is they expect the number of hurricanes to remain about the same but the average intensity may increase over time. There have been some bad hurricanes in the past decade but by chance they haven't hit the US mainland. It's been a very active year for typhoons in the Western Pacific this year with 6 super typhoons so far.
There may be some idiots who make those sorts of claims but if you asked a real scientist about it they would probably say that it is not proof that the Earth is not warming. That it's just another piece of data in the growing accumulation of weather data. That part of studying climate is looking at aggregates of the data over time to discover how the climate is changing.
And a word about snow. In general the warmer it is the more snow you get (up to the point where it gets too warm to fall as snow of course). The warmer the atmosphere is the more water vapor it can hold which means more potential for heavier snowfall. There are no doubt exceptions to that generality but I'd bet they are relatively rare.
Grin. Of course you're right but they can't say that explicitly. Thus my statement. Of course the GOP's big problem is the changing demographics in this country and their failure to keep up with them. I strange really. Most of the Hispanics I know are pretty conservative so if they just dropped the anti-immigrant rhetoric they'd probably get a lot more of their votes.
Plants... they consume CO2, which seems to be the big issue in climate change.
How about projects to plant more plants in cities globally? Like forcing coal-powered power plants to surround their plant with plants? Plan to plant more plants in your plants.
Plants can help but considering that we're daily burning an amount of fossil fuels equivalent to centuries or millennia of plant growth accumulation it can't fix the problem in any relevant time span.
Because the climate models we have now do a poor job of predicting weather, we don't know yet how big the carbon problem is.
It takes a special brand of ignorance to put down climate models for doing a poor job of predicting weather when that is something they were never intended to do in the first place.
Do you have any idea how much adjusting they have to do to derive satellite temperatures? It's an order of magnitude more than for the surface temperature measurements. In the first place satellites don't measure temperatures directly but rather the microwave emissions of O2 molecules in the atmosphere. Then they convert that to a temperature for an amorphous blob of the atmosphere. The adjustments they have to make include adjustments for orbital drift and decay of the satellites, deterioration of the sensors, the change in satellites as they get replaced. One of the scientists involved in the RSS satellite temperature group says he trusts the surface temperature measurements more than his own satellite measurements.
Latest news is they were not US Marines but one US Air Force and one Oregon National Guard plus the civilian. But you're right, their actions are all to their credit.
Not for me.
That'll be why the models continue diverging from reality unless we continually 'adjust' the temperature record to make them a better fit.
I'm always amused by statements that say things like that without applying any rigorous science to back it up.
I've noticed that these stories about retractions of peer reviewed papers are nearly always about medical research. I wonder why.
Changes in CO2 levels will always lead to changes in global temperature regardless of the source of the change in CO2. CO2 changes from human activity have been happening for a long time (thousands of years) but mostly until after WW II they were small enough to not be particularly noticeable.
As far as an 18 year pause any rigorous statistical analysis shows the warming trend for the past 18 years is indistinguishable from the warming trend since 1970. The pause is all in the eye of the deniers. Here's the analysis by a statistician.
It looks like you still don't get it that water vapor levels are strictly reactive to conditions in the atmosphere subject to the availability of water to be evaporated. Water vapor cannot drive climate change and so cannot drive runaway warming on its own.
If a volcano erupts, we agree it emits aerosols into the atmosphere. We agree that these aerosols contribute to cooling. We disagree on what water vapor does. If water vapor does as you say, and contributes to cooling, how does the atmosphere recover?
We agree in the short term the aerosols will go away. In that time though, you claim water vapor will have been contributing to more cooling. By this point the planet is considerably cooler than the few years ago the eruption occurred. That means that water vapor will be contributing to more continued cooling and a runaway cycle.
When the aerosols drop out of the atmosphere the insolation reaching the surface is what recovers. Water vapor is strictly reactive to the conditions in the atmosphere so when more insolation reaches the surface of water bodies there is more evaporation and water vapor increases. Because water vapor is strictly reactive to the conditions of the atmosphere there is no way it can drive climate change. It merely reaches an equilibrium dictated by the current conditions.
Add to that the current satellite data shows no statistically significant warming for 18 out of the 65 years that anthropogenic warming was even possible, it's no wonder that the "consensus" has fallen from 97% to the 50's range, and the popular opinion puts climate change near last.
I don't think that's possible since satellite temperature data is only about 36 years old at this point. Among climate scientists I doubt the consensus has changed much at all.
Because the fossil fuels we are burning are the result of thousands and millions of years of plant accumulation so it will take a similar amount of time for plants the reabsorb the CO2.
Except we don't know that interaction with near the confidence you claim. The prevailing theory is that Water Vapor, which accounts for ~80% of the greenhouse effect, is short lived and there for NOT an important long term feedback mechanism.Observation however shows that after volcanic eruptions shift the global energy balance abruptly, the decreasing temperature leads to rapid feedbacks bringing the global energy balance back to 'normal'. The predominant mechanism being water vapor. So at a minimum we have witnessed repeatedly that in response to lowered temperature, water vapor acts as a negative feedback to warm things up. Luckier still for us, it doesn't continue on as a warming feedback as we approach the current global norms, it tapers off.
Large volcanic eruptions shift the global energy balance by injecting aerosols (primarily SO2) into the stratosphere where they reflect more sunlight increasing the albedo of the Earth. The reason the effect doesn't last long is that the aerosols are short lived and come back out of the atmosphere in 2 or 3 years. It has nothing to do with water vapor feedback. By cooling the atmosphere large volcanic eruptions reduce the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
The point about water vapor in the atmosphere is that it's limited by temperatures. It the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor then some of it will rain out. Water vapor can't drive climate change because it's a strictly reactive gas at the temperatures found in the atmosphere.
Also, clouds can be both a negative and a positive feedback depending on where and when they're found. They may block and reflect incoming sunlight but they also block radiation coming from ground level. Ever notice how much warmer a cloudy night is than a clear night usually? Scientists studying clouds effects on global warming find them to most likely be a slightly positive feedback.
This is why no-one trusts the media. I doubt even the most fervent anti-CC campaigner believes this to be true. And while I don't think climate change itself is a hoax, I'm far less convinced that it's a death sentence (e.g. as far as I know we've had higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere in the past without all life dying).
The issue isn't all life dying off. That's not going to happen. I don't even think homo sapiens will go extinct. We are a very adaptable species.
The issue is whether our modern high tech civilization can survive the changes that are coming and even if it can what the cost will be as opposed to the cost of doing something about it in the first place.
That's a huge assumption on your part that you would have thousands of examples. What do you base that assumption on?
The names of people who have voted is a public record. You can get that list and start going through it to verify that the people actually voted and that they are actually eligible to vote. If you're too lazy to do that legwork that's your problem.
Agreed.
Here in Oregon I vote on a paper ballot, not a machine. The county (who run elections in this state) mails me my paper ballot at least 2 weeks before the election. I mark it and put it in the privacy envelope then put that in the outer envelope and sign my name to it and deliver it to a ballot drop off location or mail it.
But we do have some machines in the county elections offices for the sake of handicapped voters who can't use the regular system easily. There is no point in trying to hack them since so few votes are cast on them.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that voting machines are an abomination but I would accept a vote printing machine as long as I can hold the printed ballot in my hand, confirm it is correctly marked and personally deliver it to the ballot box.
If they had proper ID to register to vote then why isn't their voter registration card a proper ID to vote with?
She got caught. Good. I want to see prosecution of people who commit voter fraud. But are you assuming that there must be hundreds or thousands of people who did the same thing without getting caught? Enough to materially affect the election? Seems like a big stretch to me.
That works for me. As long as I can hold my actual ballot that will be counted in my hand and verify that it is marked as I intended I'm satisfied.