Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across US

that i believe is the only real question here.

exactly what is *our* part in this change??
its been proven that the poles have been flipped magnetically several times. (slow to us, rapid to the Earth)

now is this rotation magnetic only or is it physical as well causing drastic alterations in our weather patterns?

but at the same time, i find it hard to believe that 6 billion people on the Earth have no effect especially when most of us trod past with no regard to our surroundings.

remember that poster from the 70's ??? footprints in sand on the beach? wind, waves pretty much insuring we leave no lasting impressions behind??

well, we dont put down footprints, we might as well all consider ourselves as back hoe operators.

**off topic warning**

whether you like his music or hate it, John Denver is the person who started me on thinking about our impact on the Earth. songs like Rocky Mountain High that started me looking at the wonders of the world,
Calypso that started me thinking that we were screwing it up.

he started this when the topic was not all that popular. he could see that action was needed to fix our wrongs. too bad only he, Jimmy Carter and very few others were in his corner.

to quote

Earth; our ONLY home.
No Second Chances

John Denver

P.S. a new 5 disc DVD was released. interesting what he has to say about the environment back in the mid 80's

 

What you think really doesn't matter. You might also think the earth is flat or the moon is made of cheese, but that wouldn't make you correct.

What matters is that we can identify a root cause through several indisputable facts: 1. Man has been unearthing vast quantities of carbon, converting them into carbon dioxide and emitting these into the atmosphere for the past several hundred years. 2. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does trap an increasing quantity of the solar radiation within our atmosphere/oceans.

The only real question left is how much of an effect are we having? The question is not "are we having an effect?" There is a lot of room for debate over how much impact CO2 concentration is having and how much of a role other factors are playing.

That's an amusing misinterpretation of how economics works. Unfortunately, it is also gospel among conservatives. They really innovated for the past 8 years! Oops, that was the largest financial collapse in history, all under the guise of "financial innovation, deregulation, and getting big govt. out of the way."

No, your denialist friends will not innovate. They will continue to resist innovation and go the way of the dinosaurs. So why encourage their self-destructive behaviour? Instead provide incentives to the promising new mammals...you know, the ones that have some actual solutions.

Taxes, incentives, and regulations can actually spur innovation because they change the playing field. Govt. authority used intelligently (as in the polar opposite of how conservatives wielded it for the past decade) can actually propel us to a more competitive and cost advantaged position. Building infrastructure, putting man on the moon, rural electrification, the internet, interstate highways, national electric grid, national communiciations grid, a stable monetary system, building codes, public education and many other things have enhanced our competitiveness, as well as our standard of living. Change spurs innovation.

What doesn't spur innovation? DENIAL of obvious trends. Denial produces BUBBLES because of perverse economic incentives that support self-destructive unsustainable behaviour. Ask Greenspan...he's even been forced to admit as much. He never dreamed that private enterprise would act in its own short term interest to the point that they would endanger themselves en masse long term. Yet they could, and they did.

It's pretty obvious already. Our foreign competition didn't bury their heads in the sand, while the U.S. led by a conservative govt. and conservative business lobby did. This has left our nation laden with economic albatrosses. We've got trillions worth of energy inefficient homes, appliances, and vehicles hanging about our necks as the result of perverse incentives. It will take decades to replace them. And whose products are we likely to replace them with? Some outside manufacturer whose govt. and industry have led rather than reluctantly followed. Conservatives would grant them the win by forfeit. Much of the rest of the country thinks we actually should adapt and try to turn this thing around.

 

The idea that we cannot affect the Earth's processes is ludicrous. Just witness the changes in air and water quality that occurred between 1950 and today.

The legislation being debated in the United States Senate would not impose any tax on entrepreneurs, unless they're emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide, in which case they are probably not entrepreneurs as the term is commonly used.

This is a nomenclature game that also goes on with the term 'small business'. Few people know that the US government defines a 'small' business as less than 500 employees, which the rest of the world (and most people, if asked) considers a mid-sized business. This skews a lot of the statistics.

 

I hate the cold...

 

Both. The parts you don't eat, you burn.

Supposed to be +10 C by Saturday. That's a good 10-14 C above historical averages. Supposed to cool off next week, with chance of snow

Yes, my snowblower is ready to go

We should find a way to capture that hot air and put it to good use

 

Stagnating Temperatures: Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

 

Oh, forgive me your worship, I forgat, what you think really does matter ---LOL Ha ha ha
Stagnating Temperatures: Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

 

You "forgat" a lot of things apparently. The problem is you can't use reason, logic, or science and instead rely on your "belief system."

What you post is the standard denialist tripe. While you said it was what you "think" the reality is that it is what you want to believe. It's the stereotypcial conservative faith based approach to science questions. No, I'm not talking about religion per se, but your inherently non-objective approach to issues. You have a belief system and arrange information to support the belief. It is the polar opposite of science which requires testing of the theory and health skepticism.

What I think doesn't really matter, what does matter are the indisputable points that I was reiterating, same as I do periodically for the line of conservatrolls that wander through here with their pseudoscience.

 

Forgive me, your eminence, I know that you have never posted a typo -- I await your most perfect instructions about the warming problem you have. In the meantime --
Stagnating Temperatures: Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

 

Don't feed the trolls!

 

Geez - how many times do you have to post the SAME FRIGGIN' LINK. Not to mention in this one single thread, but multiple times in other threads, too!

Have you finally lost your marbles?

 

Well, try this one on for size --- Super-cycle cooling anyone?
NOVA Online/Cracking the Ice Age/The Big Chill

 

I enjoyed reading the Nova link, as it explains how geologic processes may modulate climate over a very long scale via their effects on CO2.

 

Geology rocks!

I liked this part of the article:

I wonder what would happen if we "dug" all that transformed organic matter up and burned it? I mean if there was not a major shift in the plates causing uplift or some other mechanism to act as sink for the newly added CO2 wouldn't it build up in the atmosphere? Would the recruitment of photosynthesising planktonic (calcifying) life be able to overcome ocean acidiification and work to decrease oceanic pCO2 so that the ocean could continue acting as a strong CO2 sink? Ohh dear, so much to think about.....

 

Atmospheric CO2 (as well as we can know it in the far past) has taken major dips when trees (tree ferns and lycopods) colonized land, when gynmosperms evolved, and again when angiosperms evolved. The first dip coincided with the formation of much of the earth's coal, and the exposure (by roots) of a lot of silicate minerals that consumed carbonate in weathering reactions.

Overall the carbon cycle would be fascinating and perhaps mostly of interest to nerdly scientists (such as I) except for a sense of urgency attached to current rapid changes. The coal from dip #1 is returning to the atmosphere as CO2, as quickly as we can make it happen.

 

104 here next week Aussie Owner where do you get your info. Along with most of the posters in this thread.

According to NWS/NOAA data the global temperature has been cooling and or remained stable since 1990. 2009 is the coldest year on record in the US since the 1970's

 

Quadracer, please provide your source for your information,

Thank you,

Icarus

 

The data is on the NOAA website. I'll link it later when I get home mate.

 

Are we confusing weather and climate?
I guess this whole thread is about weather so that is OK. Maybe some struggle with the concept (quadracer1014), but the world is bigger than just the USA.

And for AussieOwner, we had 44C temps then sent the weather system over for your enjoyment, no need to come here, we deliver. Hear you had a few fires over east, hope everything is OK now.

 

a single year, especially one that concerns global climate change is nearly meaningless. what we are experiencing is more climate extremes.

not saying that weather patterns are like a pendulum out of control, but...