|
|
Weather Acting Funny in Your Neighbourhood?
When is science not science? When it appears in a Yahoo "news" piece. Antartic ice has been growing for as long as such things are measured. Breaking small pieces of ice (berging) is a natural consequence of expanding glaciers. Given that Antarctica holds 90% of the worlds glacial ice (30 million cubic Km) and the average temperature there is minus 57F (80 below freezing), it's safe to say that Antarctic Ice melt is not going to happen at all. Even if the entire Greenland ice sheet (which averages -24F to -4F at the highest) were put under hot sunlamps it would take thousands of years to melt. Even the latest report (ACIA 2006) said that fringes of the Greenland ice sheet were losing 239 cubic km per year. (never mind that the interior is gaining that back) Even if that rate increased tenfold to 2390 km^3 per year it would take 1200 years for the ice in Greenland to melt and the sea level would rise 23 feet. That's not going to happen. 239 km^3 per year works out to 12,000 years. By that time we'll be in another ice age. The math just doesn't add up. The science doesn't either. Any honest geophysicist will tell you that you can just melt 2.85 million km^3 (Greenland) or 30 million km^3 (Antarctica) of ice without an event to produce the energy required on the scale that mankind couldn't possibly produce. Meanwhile the Antarctic Ice sheet is actually expanding, and the latest 2 reports in 2005 said that the Greenland ice sheets are actually thickening, gaining back 80 km^3 per year in the interior. Al Gore is an idiot and a gross profiteer who benefits from global warming scare tactics.. Global warming is a hysterical religious movement that distorts facts and labels those who disagree heretics.
Thank you Malmo for stating what I know/believe from education and experience to be true but lacked the initiative to look up the the numbers.
(No, I did not actually witness the last ice age.) I concur, Al Gore is an exploitive, self-aggrandizing buffoon.
Guess some of us can now stop racing around shouting "The ice is falling, the ice is falling!" 
Thanks to all here for putting this controversy to rest. They almost had me thinking maybe even we were somehow responsible... jim
The thing is imo, most of the see-no-evil monkeys latch on the the convenient global-warming twig mr Gore has extended and hang on to it as if it was the be-all-end-all element of Man's obvious pollution of the planet and swing their tales off like that's the one and only issue. Paw-over-eyes, this monkey refuses to look around at the world around it, and resorts to "scientific" data from over the past century--during which time of course the vast amount of species anihiliation and deforestation, and air and water pollution has moved to the no-way-back point--to fashion statements about "eras and periods" of weather that in fact have no long range patterns, no starting point, no patterns. What is out there now IS, that's what we and the polar bears and honeybees are living here and now. Hang your "patterns"; look around you. I'm saying the anti-global warming factions are using this single--but signal--issue to try to obfuscate a larger matter. Lay off the specious analogies about PC/Liberals/"Greenies" and such; and come down off the reverse pulpit-PC speeches about religion and "heretics." Those "facts" and figures are statistics from a straight-line Newtonian paradigm in a world where Chaos and Probability reign. get out and look around the world, the country, this country, your state and community. If you can report that you have seen no degradation of the natural environment, or anything less than frightening depradation here and abroad, then I think we, you and I, have very different faculties--or value systems. Global warming is a strawman, political plaything that serves to keep the masses befuddled and to allow the carnival barkers of the right to ply their "damn the liberals, full speed ahead with consumption of natural resources." The anti-global warming hucksters get to brandish their shiny canes and point to their "facts" and "figures" --based on arbitrary time periods that have no relevance to the present facts--that only direct attention away from what you can see right now today anywhere around you. If you care enough to look. And feel for this beautiful planet benighted by a strange, greedy race. Take roll call: all creatures great and small? How many can muster up to the call, since Man's dominion got into full sway? Where are you going to find water and air in the coming tiny bit of time? [edit for spelling, sense] jim
Article says that exaggeration is a pitfall on both sides in the global warming debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/scien ... 5hype.html
I just read another article admitting that the doom and gloom prophecy was the result of failure to recognize and allow for migration of "sensors", which severely skewed the interpretation.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (anyone remember those?), its all a scam folks.
I could understand a "scam", if politicians aka AG were the only ones promoting it. But all Academies of Science around the world? They are all saying, there is a global climate change and we are contributing to it. Are they scamming? 
Just trying to save ya'll a lot of useless anguish. 
I hope that you are right, lonewolf. And that the report that is hitting the airwaves today is wrong. That report summarizes the work of thousands of scientists from 60 Nations, over the past two years. The conclusions include the fact that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting at a much faster rate that previously expected --- a rate of 114 billion tonnes of ice melt per year, equivalent to the total annual mass loss for Greenland. I hope they are wrong about the possible causes and implications, but I wonder how many bright guys could be so wrong...
i am not saying the climate is not changing. It changes every day, week, month, year, century, millenia and ... eons; was doing so for millions of years before man inhabited the planet and will continue to do after man joins the dodo birds.
I am saying man did not cause it and cannot change or stop it. This forum is hardly the place to go into a long discourse on the evidence for or against man being responsible for global warming but I will make two simple points. 1. Increased carbon dioxide emissions are the result of warming, not the cause as espoused by the carbon alarmists. Even were it so, mans contribution is inconsequently puny compared to that of the rest of nature. 2. The poles of the earth have not always been at their present position. they have erratically migrated thousands of miles. Artic, temperate and tropical climates have migrated around the globe accordingly. Not within the observable span of recorded history.. but, ya gotta start someplace. And, incidentally, loss of some Antartic ice is being offset by growth in the Artic/Greenland. I suspect many/most of the "scientists" who ostensibly buy into global warming have a vested interest in continuing the controversy and the ensuing research grants and fees for representing and speaking knowlingly for those commercial enterprises profiting from the carbon credit boondoggle I don't blame them for looking out for their own well being.. LIke lawyers, they are just taking the other side.. but they are wrong.... My position on this is the result of education, not because I am an "oil man". The fortunes of the oil bizz wax and wane on a much shorter cycle and completely independent from global warming. I
So you agree there is global warming. As I think most people should, the debate is whether it is man made or not
This surprises me, where did you read this? Also, this sounds more like an argument against global warming. I don't think such an argument is needed to take the side of "there is not enough evidence to conclude global warming is man made".
Anyone want to tackle on the issue concerning the United Kingdom's unusual snowfall last month? I got caught in it and stuck at Stansted for two nights. Was the snowfall - which dropped for a week - due to climate change, or a non-(man-made)climate factor?
To be devils advocate. The Thames used to freeze on a semi-regular basis. Last one was in 1963. http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/wind ... eze63.html
To clarify, lonewolf, I doubt that anyone seriously is accusing you of being an "oilman" in this discussion, as compared to an educated world citizen.
I certainly wasn't saying that. Relative to the points you made: 1) Yes, man's contribution to the planetary CO2 output is relatively puny, but some are positing that small percentage may be enough to accelerate a "tipping point", beyond which more severe and longer term climage change could be more likely. We probably won't know if that is correct, until it's much too late. 2) The most recent and most intense research, which I quoted from earlier, indicates Antartic melt is occurring much faster than previous models showed, Greenland melt is also accelerating, and Arctic sea ice is diminishing. 3) Yes, the Poles move over time of course. But one of the most dramatic projections from this recent study is that, if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt continues to accelerate, there is enough weight there to shift the Earth's rotation axis dramatically. The models show this would send a huge "bulge" of water into the Northern Hemisphere. Much to the chagrin of those who leave in low-lying coastal areas of North America, particularly on the Pacific Coast. There are lots of new excerpts from the research, starting to show up on Google today --- I just go to Antarctic Ice Melting. Interesting subject, and some interesting reading.
More silliness:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1235610 ... b_page_one
Climate Change in Al Gore's Hometown
60 in D.C. today, will be 40 degrees Sunday (as I jet to Cancun).
It was 86 F in College Station Friday afternoon, 39 F Saturday morning. I doubt you could have convinced any of the teenage soccer players thawing out in McDonalds post-game Saturday morning that global warming was a serious issue... especially the goalies who mostly just had to stand and wait.
About 10 inches on the ground and still coming down. It's probably the most we've had in four years. You gotta love a Nor'easter!
The latest experiment to help slow global warming (or the latest silliness, depending on your point of view). They're changing the diet of cows so they belch less methane.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/us/05cows.html
It's the methane trapped in the permafrost that might be the biggest problem with regard to a positive feedback loop. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opini ... ugman.html (Note that Krugman says it CO2 from the permafrost, but I think he means methane)
Record lows today in Colorado, 17F in Denver, old record was 25F in 1905. Freezing fog/mist all day. Right now it's 23F in the Springs, usual high for the date is 66F. In fact, today's high temp is about equal to the record low for the date (23F)!
This needed a bump. I was just rereading through it. Good to see MJD active. And I had completely forgotten about Figo's passion on this topic.
Not to mention the biggest flameout in board history.
Traveling sucks, traveling in the winter? Super sucks. My friend was asked to drive an old lady down to the New York airport on Sunday. I told him i heard that because of the recent snow , flights were gonna be 2-3 days late. I made the mistake of saying IF she got a flight i would go with him on the 3 hour drfive like a good friend should. To my shock, she said she had a 7pm flight. I begged him to make sure she really did have a flight because i didnt mind spending my day off helping an old women but if she doesnt actually ly out im gonna be pissed. We were assured her flight was on. Drove her down, dropped her off and found out monday morning she called a car to take her back home- no flight! 
Thanks for the concern. I have all the above. I also have a four foot snow drift on the patio blocking my back door from the garage. What I don't have is a snow shovel. 
The real crisis is, I am the long standing designated toy opener/assembler for 4 and 8 year old grandsons at daylight tomorrow morning seven miles cross town.
Who is onlineUsers browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests |
|
