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quote:
Originally posted by NashBama:
There is no consensus on global warming, .


Yes there is, Nash. You would never know that from listening to political leaders and scientists such as Rick and Bubba but the scientific consensus is extraordinarily clear.

I'm not surprised that you will deny reality just because you disagree with it but you are very wrong on that statement.

Science Magazine: Link

Link contains a press release from the National Academy of Science - one of the most respected organizations on the planet - who clearly sate the reasons for a little concern.

Yes, there is dissent. There should be when confronted with so much complex (and sometimes contrary) data. But neither you nor I not anyone else on this forum are qualified to weigh the evidence and would be wise to PROVISIONALLY accept the consensus.

The source for your opinion is, no doubt, the conservative political movement. I was once one of those, too. I understand your dilemma but you appear to be on the wrong side, Nash.

Here is one more excellent blog if you care to appear knowledgeable about the subject: Link

I don't give a damm if you continue to deny the overwhelming consensus. You may, in fact, be right. Science has been humbled by bold assertions before but SCIENCE itself will correct the matter, not Rush Limbaugh or Rick and Bubba.
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quote:
Originally posted by NashBama:
Antarctic ice is growing, not melting.

Link


Your article cited the findings of one scientists who admitted that some areas were losing ice while being offset by gains in another area.

That confusing article is offset by this one even more recently:

Link says that melting ice sheets in the Antarctic may only result in a 11-foot increase in sea level over the next century instead of 20 feet.

That still suck tremendously for vast stretches of people living in the northeast including the great lake areas.

Here are actual images of the north polar ice cap, Nash: Link

Here is a chart that shows the globe is cooling after a ,long warming spell: Link

Many think that the cyclic periods of solar maximums have much to do with the anomalous temperature. The worry is that if that if the previous data was correct - that the earth was getting warming due to human activity, then the next time the sun decides to burp, global temperatures will increase dramatically. In other words, the temporary cooling effect might be masking the warming trend but over a 100 year time scale, temperatures are still expected to rise.

I can understand why some would be awfully confused at this contradictory information. It is a lot of data for either side to attempt to grasp.

Thus my assertion that we non-scientists have no choice but to assume the consensus is correct until the consensus changes.
quote:
Originally posted by Reflecting One of the voices i:
[URL= Link Cold in New York[/URL]

lets see...colder temps for the last several years.....besides a warmer climate will increase crops, reduce emmissions from oil burning heaters and save energy


Yup. It may all be good. The Greenland Ice Sheet has experience record melting the past few years. Imagine a a whole new continent-sized area available for farming and settlement! The problem is that as it melts, every major city in the northeastern US will be flooded and the ocean current that brings warmth to places like Great Britain may slow or stop causing all sorts of interesting mayhem.

I'm not saying that warming is (overall) a bad thing for humanity. But that is easy for me to say here in the Shoals where we are 500 feet above sea level.

I might have a different perspective if I live in New York or Chicago which is only a few feet above sea level.
quote:
Originally posted by Cookey:
quote:
Originally posted by Reflecting One of the voices i:
[URL= Link Cold in New York[/URL]

lets see...colder temps for the last several years.....besides a warmer climate will increase crops, reduce emmissions from oil burning heaters and save energy


Yup. It may all be good. The Greenland Ice Sheet has experience record melting the past few years. Imagine a a whole new continent-sized area available for farming and settlement! The problem is that as it melts, every major city in the northeastern US will be flooded and the ocean current that brings warmth to places like Great Britain may slow or stop causing all sorts of interesting mayhem.

I'm not saying that warming is (overall) a bad thing for humanity. But that is easy for me to say here in the Shoals where we are 500 feet above sea level.

I might have a different perspective if I live in New York or Chicago which is only a few feet above sea level.


Ummm Chicago has an elevation of 649 feet...and New Yorks Central Park is 154.....
AT Most the sea level goes up is 13 inches...sorry to the bowl city of NO and Syndey.
But that's worst case even if it were real, but it ISN'T real....personally I don't like the cold....but we are heading toward a new ice age....New Ice Age
Cookey, from your article.

"While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it."

It's exactly what I've been saying, we're not warming we're cooling.

There was a period during the Middle Ages where the average temperature increased, the Medieval Warm Period. People's farming habits changed, growing a lot of wheat and fragile crops. Then, there was the Little Ice Age which created famine due to crop failure. That was a long time before cars.

One of the first things I learned in elementary school Earth science was that the planet is constantly changing. We're not guaranteed one constant temperature. It will always fluctuate, it always has. Right now, it's cooler than usual.
Here's an interesting article from 1999 that has some interesting predictions that seem to be coming true:

Link

Headline: "Global warming can cause global cooling"

Excerpts: "Scientists announced in the July 21, 1999, edition of the journal Nature findings that suggest that global warming can sometimes lead to cold weather or even a worldwide freeze.

Scientists have long known that a severe cold spell occurred after the end of the Pleistocene glaciation, approximately 8,200 years ago. The cause, however, has been a mystery. The authors of the Nature article write that the centuries long cold spell might have been caused by meltwater from the disappearing glaciers, cooling the North Atlantic. "

"The authors conclusions demonstrate how global warming can, paradoxically, provoke a global freeze. If a modern glacier such as the Greenland Ice Sheet melts (as I posted earlier) as a result of rising temperatures in the next century, it could trigger a similar flood and climate fluctuation, the researchers said. "

(me here) This illustrates the complexity of this issue. The average Alabamian cannot wrap his head around the fact that global warming can result in all sorts of changes - some good and not so. It would seem to me to be wise to accept the consensus.

It is generally asserted that cold temps are much less preferable than warm temps.

The bottom lines is that I find it very interesting that Global Cooling is a predicted aspect of Global Warming.
quote:
Originally posted by Reflecting One of the voices i:
Ummm Chicago has an elevation of 649 feet...and New Yorks Central Park is 154.....


Yes, but Chicago is only 15 feet above Great Lake level. That lake is fed from the Hudson which is connected to the Atlantic so that a rise in sea level will result in a rise in Great Lake levels.

Central Park may be that high but New York is surrounded by shipping docks and other areas around the periphery that are just a few feet above sea level.

Again, this confusing and seemingly-contradictory data is impossible for the average Alabamian to understand.

Here are some facts to ponder: from Link

"The main ice covered landmass is Antarctica at the South Pole, with about 90 percent of the world's ice (and 70 percent of its fresh water). Antarctica is covered with ice an average of 2,133 meters (7,000 feet) thick. If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 61 meters (200 feet). But the average temperature in Antarctica is -37°C, so the ice there is in no danger of melting. In fact in most parts of the continent it never gets above freezing.

At the other end of the world, the North Pole, the ice is not nearly as thick as at the South Pole. The ice floats on the Arctic Ocean. If it melted sea levels would not be affecte­d.

There is a significant amount of ice covering Greenland, which would add another 7 meters (20 feet) to the oceans if it melted. Because Greenland is closer to the equator than Antarctica, the temperatures there are higher, so the ice is more likely to melt."
Perhaps, you should review the petition signed by 31,478 scientists, including over 9,000 PhDs, stating they do not believe global warming is real.

Link

Global warming stopped in 1998. Since then, there has not been a warming trend on a global basis.

Earth's climate is most affected by the sun's solar winds. When the winds are stong, they push back against cosmic rays and cause warming. When the solar winds are weaker, cosmic rays affect the atmosphere and cause global cooling -- ice ages. At present, the sun's surface is quiet and solar winds are weak.
quote:
Earth's climate is most affected by the sun's solar winds. When the winds are stong, they push back against cosmic rays and cause warming. When the solar winds are weaker, cosmic rays affect the atmosphere and cause global cooling -- ice ages. At present, the sun's surface is quiet and solar winds are weak.


Yes, that is certainly an essential segment of the Global Warming formula. That is counteracted by the obvious and dramatic increase in CO2, which some argue might ultimately result in global warming or cooling.

There there is the aerosol factor. Then there is the effect of other lesser chemicals that seem to counteract that effect. Then there is the fact that sunspot activity is at a low right now but will cycle back again causing all sorts of interesteing effect.

That is my point, Int. Neither you nor I are qualified to wrap our minds around this stuff. I also used to be a warming denier but after studying the incredible complexities. My gosh, we have the most powerful supercomputers in the world that can't get a handle on this stuff!

My decision on where to fall on this issue matters to no one except myself. But when a layman like me needs to come to a decision on what "cause" to support, AND if there is good science behind the stance AND there is an overwhelming consensus by international organizations who's only goal is scientific scrutiny, I am only left with one PROVISIONAL conclusion: That global warming exists and is probably man-made.

You priovided a link to a list of individual who have sign a petition and by organizations that were formed for the sole purpose of denying global warming.

The following are international recognized institutions who have issued proclamations that support the theory that the globe is warming from Link that comprise and represent millions of members of the scientific community.

The question ultimately is this: Take politics and personal beliefs out of the equation. Look at this from a purely statistical, unbiased standpoint recognizing that you nor I really don't know Jack Spit about this issue. Which group of people are the "best bets"?

The smart money would seem to rest with the vast, overwhelming majority. That's who I'm siding with as I watch this roulette wheel spin. I've got my eye on the other bet and am willing to move my money before the ball drops.
Hahahahahahahahaha.

Link



Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels. A PDF of the original is available here. A fine short history of warming and cooling scares has recently been produced. It is available here.

We invite interested readers to vist our new website: Climate Debate Daily. — D.D.



There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

—PETER GWYNNE with bureau reports
Int,

Take a closer look at the US National Academy of Science. It comprises 2000 members from all diciplines and one of the most respected organizations on earth. It us one of many similar organizations that are listed.

My "millions" comment was hyperbole in retrospect. Certainly tens on thousands but not millions.
I did not say there weren't any not familiar with meteorology. Yes hyperbole is a tool of the global warmers. They love to call those who do not believe deniers to connect them with holocaust deniers. Its despicable and ranks with calling jews the new nazis.

As to tens of thousands, is that anything like the 31,478 scientists I referred to earlier?
21st Century Science & Technology

Is a New Ice Age Under Way?

by Laurence Hecht
November 2000

“Watch out, Al Gore. The glaciers will get you!” With that appended note, my friend, retired field geologist Jack Sauers, forwarded to me a report that should have been a lead item in every newspaper in the world. It was the news that the best-measured glacier in North America, the Nisqually on Mount Rainier, has been growing since 1931.

The significance of the fact, immediately grasped by any competent climatologist, is that glacial advance is an early warning sign of Northern Hemisphere chilling of the sort that can bring on an Ice Age. The last Little Ice Age continued from about 1400 to 1850. It was followed by a period of slight warming. There are a growing number of signs that we may be descending into another Little Ice Age—all the mountains of “global warming” propaganda aside.

Our current understanding of the long-term climate cycles shows that for the past 800,000 years, periods of approximately 100,000 years’ duration, called Ice Ages, have been interrupted by periods of approximately 10,000 years, known as Interglacials. (We are now about 10,500 years into the present Interglacial.)

What Causes Ice Ages
These cycles are not mere statistical correlations, as some Wall Street prognosticator working at the modern PC version of a ouija board might spin out. They are determined, with great scientific precision, to correlate with long-term, cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbital relationship to the Sun. Three fundamental orbital relationships are involved, each of which contributes to the amount of sunlight received in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. When these cycles combine to reduce the incoming solar radiation (insolation) during summer months, over a number of years, the ice sheets which permanently cover Greenland, parts of Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia, and elsewhere, begin to advance.

At a certain point, the growth process becomes self-feeding, partly because the high reflectivity of ice and snow reduces the local temperature, partly for reasons that are not fully understood. The glaciers thicken and expand until they become continental ice sheets, one to two miles thick, creeping ever southward. Geological evidence shows that in the last Ice Age, the southern boundary of the continental ice sheet, known as a terminal moraine, stretched down the center of Long Island, through New York City, across New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Southern Illinois and Missouri, then up the Plains States through Montana and Washington State. All of this real estate was buried under one to two miles of ice.

Geologically and climatologically speaking, we are due for another such glacial advance. It might not happen in our lifetimes, but radical shifts in the climate of northern regions can take place suddenly, and in some places may already be taking place.

How to Look at ‘Global Warming’
A very important thing to understand in interpreting all the swill that issues daily from the Global Warming mill (really the anti-industry, anti-population lobby, headed and pumped with money by the Royal Consort Prince Philip, and former Nazi Party member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands), is that the onset of an Ice Age is not marked by global cooling. In fact, the very same astronomical conditions which cause a cooling at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, produce the opposite effect in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is much more ocean to absorb and retain the incoming solar radiation. Thus the global average temperature does not tell us anything of importance.

The geological requirements for an Ice Age are the presence of a large landmass around the Polar Circle and extending southward. A look at the globe, or world map, shows that those conditions exist in the Northern Hemisphere, but not in the Southern. Therefore, the important thing to look at is the climate conditions in northern and far northern regions. Some of the indicators:

• Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich. (From 1926 to 1960, some 70-95% of these glaciers were in retreat.)

• A comparison of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 1965 and 1990 Plant Hardiness Zone Maps, shows a southward change of one zone, or 10°F, between 1965 and 1990.

• Careful measurements of the oxygen isotope ratios in German oaks, which are rigorously calibrated to temperature data, show a 1°C temperature decline from 1350 to 1800 (the lowpoint of the Little Ice Age). Temperature thereafter increased by 1°C from 1800 to 1930, and has been declining since then.

• From weather stations in the Alps, and in the Nordic countries, we find the temperature decline since 1930 is also 1°C.

• Satellite measurements have shown growth in the height and breadth of the huge Greenland ice sheet, the largest in the Northern Hemisphere

On Nisqually
That brings us to the Nisqually glacier, up on the 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, near Tacoma, Wash. Just 85 feet shy of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 states, Mount Rainier has 26 glaciers, and is the largest single peak system in the United States.

In 1931, fearful that the receding glacier would provide insufficient runoff for their newly completed hydroelectric facility, Tacoma City Light began careful measurements of the glacier. Since the mid-1800s, the glacier had receded about 1 kilometer. Annual to semi-annual measurements, continued by the U.S. Geological Survey and private contractors for the National Park Service, provide the longest continuous series of glacier measurements in North America.

The details are described in a report by government specialists, which appeared in the September 2000 issue of Washington Geology:

“The greatest thickening during the period of measurement occurred between 1931 and 1945, when the glacier thickened by about 50% near 2,800 meters of altitude. This and subsequent thickenings during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s produced waves that advanced its terminus. Glacier thinning occured during intervening periods. Between 1994 and 1997, the glacier thickened by 17 meters at 2,800-m altitude, indicating probable glacier advance during the first decade of the 21st century.”

That’s the story from Mount Rainier. Retired geologist Sauers, who has been observing conditions in the Cascade Mountains of western Washington for a lifetime, says “I’m preparing for an Ice Age.” Perhaps we all should.

Laurence Hecht is Editor-in-Chief of 21st Century.
Gobal warming forced by a growing atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, is based on sound science that refers to a mechanism that is well understood and very nearly universally accepted by the scientific community.

LMM, you chart does show temperature decreases, I do not deny that. But the fear is that the temporary cooling is actually masking the overall warming effect that CO2 will have when it cycles back into a warming trend.

An example of that kind of statistical manipulation is below. From studying that graph, one it certainly could be said that CO2 levels in 2009 we falling dramatically - even below the 2006 level. The observation is meaningless without considering the natural fluctuations. One must take am much longer view and study what happens when CO2 levels rise to unprecedented levels and the FACT is that we can expect some changes.

The following data is form NOAH: A known hotbed of global warming conspiracy theorists:

CO2 levels rise to a new record
mongabay.com
February 17, 2009

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations climbed 2.28 parts-per-million (ppm) in 2008 to the highest level in at least 650,000 years — and possibly 20 million years — reports NOAA.

The average annual growth rate of CO2 concentrations this decade is now 2.1 ppm a year or 40 percent higher than that of the 1990s. CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are increasing at four times the rate of the previous decade.

The news comes shortly after a leading member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the impacts of climate change are likely to be far worse than projected in the most recent assessment by the Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists.

Some scientists, including James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warn that CO2 levels must be kept below 350 ppm to avoid serious impacts from climate change. CO2 concentrations are presently around 386 ppm.

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Once again, global temperature hasn't risen for 11 years and has dropped for the last seven. I see a claim that there is a global cooling just before warming increases. Interesting claim as there has never been a global warming such as the one described in the present warmers theories.

However, it does warm before a global cooling. The Earth has spend about 90 percent of its history in a cooling mode. Perhaps, we should increase the herds of musk ox and yaks, for livestock.

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