Place your bets: Make your call on 2010 global average temperature

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This explains everything! Global warming is caused by opinion polls!

(and that explains why conservatives are trying to make everyone believe that it's a liberal conspiracy - that way the polls will go down, and presto! No more global warming.)

 

No qusestion I am not a scientist, but using NASA's own temp station data(which usually shows more warming than satellite temps) how can you say there has been warming since 2002?
Can you honestly say to yourself that the AGW movement is not dead politically for at least the next 5 years barring a couple of massive hurricanes or a couple of extraordinarily hot years?
copenhagen was a disaster, the global economy is in tatters, and the largest carbon emitter will not go along with anything meaningful.

 

Probably? Atmospheric CO2 is unequivocally increasing because of human activity. Humans emitting 26+ gigatonns of CO2 a year from burning fossil fuels will do that - and tracing carbon isotopes will confirm it.

How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions?

You can't. There hasn't been any statistically significant warming since 2002 (and NASA scientists will concur). It generally takes 15 years to get any statistically significant warming/cooling to stand out from the noise.

 

I'm not voting, because even in my own small way I don't want to contribute to a meaningless poll. I think it's meaningless for all the reasons others have cited.

And I think it's fair to assume that if you were to somehow entice every climate scientist whose research supports AGW to respond to such a poll, you'd still get more no's than yes's. There's just more liklihood one particular year won't be THE hottest than that it will be.

I do support the premise that meaningful national legislation on climate change is unlikely in the near future, which is sad, as well as that that could easily be turned around with a timely heatwave or hurricane or two, which is ridiculous, but that's how fickle our thinking too often is.

Hell, we can't even pass health care reform, despite ranking behind just about every other democratic nation in the cost, quality and availability of our health care. If we can't solve a problem as in-your-face as that, how are we going to address one whose most serious implications are many election cycles removed?

But positive movement continues on the local, regional, personal, and corporate level. People and entities across the board are taking proactive steps to shrink their carbon footprint and contribute to the solution. Not enough yet, to be sure, but it's heartening to see a broad base of support for the 'radical' concept of treading lightly on the earth.

A few years ago I attended a climate change conference in DC, just before a group of northeastern states signed an agreement to work together to meet Kyoto-style benchmarks. The most entertaining part for me was riding in an elevator with three Bush administration environmental advisors who were flabbergasted and outraged that such an agreement was imminent.

Politics ebb and flow, often for all the wrong reasons. Eventually policy will catch up to the science. Meanwhile all we can do is all we can do.

 

I really can't believe how YOU PEOPLE don't GET IT. You don't get it.

Global warming is NOT going to be noticed by you, whether you believe in it or NOT.

Rapid local climate change, here and there, is what we will see, as non-linear responses to the perturbations in the earth's atmospheric/climatic system occur. And we won't be able to fix those things.

Some sage said, "Climate is an ugly animal, and we are poking at it with sticks".

So, poke it some more, it hasn't done anthing YET....

 

Oldtown, if you are referring to extreme events of rain, drought, temperature, wind and the like, I think you will find that they are considered in the IPCC assessments and a more recent update called "The Copenhagen Diagnosis".

How to anticipate and prepare for such events remains highly controversial. If you read the Pielkes (junior and senior) you will find they suggest that we should try a lot harder to learn from previous extreme events. IMHO it is their most important objection to the IPCC assessment process, and should receive more attention.

All that costs money though, and it has been argued in nearby threads here that too much is already being spent on understanding earth system science. A 'tough nut to crack' by all apprearances.

But I completely agree with your point (as I understand it) that extreme events are likely to cost more (life and property) in the future.

 

So where/when can you attribute local weather changes to global climate change? Can you attribute my record early spring ice out this year? Three of the last ten? The fact that it failed to break a record on any given day is largely irrelevant, but I would argue that a significant number of record days in a year, and record days in a decade (or so) is relevant.

Because we can't attribute any specific event to climate change, it is the too easy to dismiss the fact that it is happening. Just as the frog will boil to death as the water is heated, so will we. Just because we can't say specifically that the temperature of the water today is related to the amount of CO2 we have emitted since the dawn of the industrial age doesn't mean it isn't getting warming. (or more correctly, the climate isn't changing due to human influence).

I repeat the same question I have asked often; to those that don't think man cause climate change/global warming is real: How can you, in what is essentially a fixed biosphere, add in many thousands times as much CO2 (whose insulating properties are beyond dispute) and not expect the earth to warm? It just doesn't make logical sense!

I agree that we can disagree as to the rate and the time scale, but to think that it cannot be happening is either basic naivety or wishful thinking.

So we will see if this year turns out to be the warmest ever, and we will agree that in any case it won't be proof positive of global warming, but it sure as hell won't proof that there is no such thing!

 

CO2 content in the atmosphere has risen from 280ppm to 360ppm.
About 30% .Thats not "many thousands of times".
In the past the CO2 levels were 40 times higher with no increase in temperature.

 

Once again,,, failure (either deliberate or because you don't know the difference) to understand!

I stated clearly "How can you, in what is essentially a fixed biosphere, add in many thousands times as much CO2 "

I said nothing about the CONCENTRATION as a percentage, a wholly different nuance. Because we have put many thousands time more CO2 into the atmosphere (annually since ~1800 and cumulatively since ~1800) this has lead to the increase in concentration that you cite, ~30%. How can you, in what is essentially a fixed biosphere, add in many thousands times as much CO2

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/global.total.gif

(Just one of many sources, but it is a quick and easy chart.

But I don't know about you, but I would suggest that if I added 30% more insulation in my house, and didn't reduce the number of BTUs i put in from the furnace, the house was (given equal sets of circumstances (averages) be warmer! So doesn't it logically follow, that if you add ~30% more of a known insulator to the atmosphere, and the insolation remains (relatively) constant, the net result is going to be warming? I am not competent to suggest how much warmer, but much of what I have read has documented an average world wide temperature increase since ~1800 of .7-1.4F. NASA - Global Warming

Knowing that the warming lags the emission by a matter of decades, it is only logical to conclude that we are currently seeing the results of emissions from decades ago. If you look at the above link of emissions since ~1800, you will realize since ~1940, emissions have tripled between then and now. So, once again, it defies logic to assume that the coming decades won't warm as fast as the last two hundred years.

The second link suggests that temps warmed between .7-1.4 degrees F in that time period and are predicted to warm as much as 10F in this current century.

Now, I don't know about else, but I have seen, in my life, the effects of the .7-1.4F and I am very concerned about the potential for futher increase,, and I fear we are very near the tipping point.

So if anyone can explain how you could come to any other LOGICAL conclusion?

 

Icarus that is total BS.
Global Warming precedes CO2 rise by 800 years.
In the past,CO2 rise has been the result of natural warming.
This is proven by ice core samples chronicling the past million years .

 

Huh???? Some citation perhaps?

 

reference? I know that during the cretaceous, CO levels were considerably higher than they are now (millions of years of much more intense volcanism + sea floor spreading rates will do that), however, the earth was also considerably warmer than it is now (no ice caps, Antarctica was temperate). What age are you referring to that had concentrations that high? Certainly none that coincided with the existence of 6.8 billion humans.

That's really this issue. Massively higher CO2 levels didn't wipe out life, even large terrestrial vertebrates thrived. However, there are so many people on the planet that we could be in for real trouble in a climatic regime that's quite a bit different to what we're used to. It should also be noted that the sun was a touch dimmer 100 million years ago, so things might be hotter now at a given CO2 concentration than they were "back in the day".

 

Mojo, the basics of global warming are dead simple. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Increasing the concentration of a greenhouse gas is like adding another blanket to the bed: you may not know where you'll start sweating first but you will certainly get warmer. Ignoring basic physics, or hoping that some secondary effect will by luck exactly counter the greenhouse gas warming, is foolish.

I advise you not to buy property in south Florida, near New Orleans or the Houston ship channel with any thought of leaving it to your grandchildren.

 

The reality is that the climate doesn't have to be "quite a bit different". In fact all it needs is be a just a little bit different. Arctic (Antarctic) and sub arctic climates exist on a very narrow threshold between ice and liquid water. A couple of degrees translates to many miles north or south of permafrost melting or staying frozen.

Most predictions are such that the higher latitudes will see greater variations from what we have seen as "normal" . The problem is such that most of the people on the planet (and surely most of the denial community) live far from the areas that will be first, and most effected, leaving many to continue to ignore the reality of global warming and it's consequences.