Global Warming Update

I might mention that during Roman times is when Mount Vesuvius erupted... Remember Pompeii? So the warmer climate may have been naturally elevated due to the ash and pumice deposited into the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect. Though we have not had any type of massive eruption of a volcano of that magnitude, the temperatures are obviously elevated and the tree rings attest to that. This would indicate that today's temperature elevation is caused solely by human activity... Were we to have a mount Vesuvius type eruption this could take our global climate over the brink. I am not a climate scientist but it is very easy to debunk. I think this study is just another propaganda piece put out by greedy right wing extremists so that big business can continue their polluting ways with less restrictions and scrutiny...

SCIENTISTS PROPOSE DUMPING HUNDREDS OF TONS OF IRON INTO OCEAN TO ‘STOP GLOBAL WARMING’
http://truththeory.com/2012/07/21/scientists-propose-dumping-hundreds-of-tons-of-iron-into-ocean-to-stop-global-warming/

Scientists say there has been a freak event in Greenland this month: Nearly every part of the massive ice sheet that blankets the island suddenly started melting.

The ice melted so fast that scientists at NASA first thought it was a computer error or some other malfunction.

For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations, according to a statement released along with satellite images on Tuesday.

"This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?" Son Nghiem of NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena said in the release.

But after conferring with colleagues, Nghiem's disbelief turned to shock.

"I think it's fair to say that this is unprecedented," Jay Zwally, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, told The Guardian.

On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.

Researchers have not yet determined whether this extensive melt event will affect the overall volume of ice loss this summer and contribute to sea level rise.

"The Greenland ice sheet is a vast area with a varied history of change. This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story," said Tom Wagner, NASA's cryosphere program manager in Washington. "Satellite observations are helping us understand how events like these may relate to one another as well as to the broader climate system."

Even the area around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles above sea level is near the highest point of the ice sheet, showed signs of melting. Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station at Summit confirmed air temperatures hovered above or within a degree of freezing for several hours July 11-12.

"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/25-0 —

Do nothing congress idle on infrastructure: 'Financial mismanagement at an epic scale'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48347379

Sen. Sessions: ‘I Am Offended’ By Views Of Climate Scientists
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/01/624821/sessions-i-am-offended-by-views-of-climate-scientists/



The American people are offended by dirty money buying off our electorate...

First, I am not a full blown skeptic, but am just noting some issues with some of this stuff.

The fact the ice melted that fast shows problems with ice melt predictions being anything close to a viable formula. Unless global warming had already significantly thinned a permanent sheet of glaciated ice underneath, then I do not see how this helps the case of global warming (if anything it causes more questions).

The biggest question would be, if ice can melt that fast from a temporary change in temperature, then how can we use the ICE to determine anything.

The answer might be, well because some ice is so old we know it has been around so long and that never happens. That might be true, but then the question becomes, then why did a very temporary shift in temperature melt it suddenly.

After all, it's not like the variation in spring to summer temperatures would be so major to melt glaciated ice instantly in a few weeks.

I live in Maine, you know Maine where normally we have only three months a year of summer? Maine where we have a saying, "If you can't stand the winters you don't deserve the summers." Maine where we have another saying, "Air conditioned by Mother Nature"... Maine where in the 1700's we had a snowstorm in early July that destroyed all the crops... Some argue the song Old Susanna and the line "sun so hot I froze to death" was written about that event. Maine where I remember as a boy sledding down apple trees, the entire trees were covered by a thin layer of snow, "sledding down apple trees..." We had to dig snow tunnels to get out of the front door of our house. I recall my dad having to ski into town to get groceries. Maine where it was usually late August when the blueberries on the fields at the barons were often left to rot frozen to the bushes.

It is nearly the end of September now and we are still having heat waves here in Maine! Yesterday I walked several miles to and from an appointment wearing a dress shirt with the selves rolled up and I was sweating along the way. It is not just the polar caps it is events happening all over the place and yes even here in Maine.

It is questionable to think that we can drill into the earth and over the last 200 years or so since Edwin Laurentine Drake invented the oil derrick and burn many of billions of barrels of oil and not have it affect our environment. The oil vapors and toxins go up into the clouds and fall back down as rain to the earth and these toxins permeate everything, the ground, the ocean etc... . Just as burning dirty coal caused many of the lakes to die here in Maine from acid rain over a very short time with also paper companies planting too many pine trees with their acidic needles around the lakes.

I do not say this as only a democrat or a liberal progressive but as a ecologically minded person who grew up in a state that educated me in the basic workings of the forest and the environment as early as fourth and fifth grade.

The coral reefs off the coast of Florida and California are decimated. Forest fires in Colorado and record heat waves in nearly every state since these records have been being recorded are common place. Now record drought in most of the Midwest and the corn harvest this year has been nearly decimated over many thousands of acres.

Global warming has even slowed down the world economy by 1.6%.
Excerpt: Climate change caused by global warming is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a doubling of costs in the next two decades, a major new report said.

http://phys.org/news/2012-09-global-world-economy.html

Currently it is 9am in the morning and it is 61 degrees in Maine "right on the coast with the open sea a few city blocks away" and again it is the end of September. This heat has not let up nearly ALL SUMMER... As for Greenland melting it seems to be an extension of this and neither political parties want to address this subject for fear of panicking the world markets and voters even more...

You can be skeptical but I suggest you bring some sunscreen just in case...

My father was a sea captain on oil takers for the merchant marines and his piloting license was 11 pages long... Near the end of his life he actively protested and testifies against the oil companies building refineries in northern Maine. Perhaps that is why we still have a thriving selfish industry here and are not experiencing the same horrific disasters seen in the Gulf of Mexico and all over the world. Disasters due to oil companies and their unscrupulous lobbying tactics to suppress the development and deployment of alternative energy sources...

The next time you sit down to feast on a Maine lobster, crabmeat, haddock etc.. you can thank my dad for his pivotal testimony during the hearings in Eastport Maine where big oil tried to muscle our Maine senators into allowing them to send tankers into Maine full of crude oil. The people voted big oil out even after they were told of all the jobs it would create... I recall in his testimony he said something to the effect about the shoals off the coast of Maine are jagged (that is why they call our coastline "rock bound"), the tides and Maine having the densest fog in the world even surpassing that of London England proved detrimental to the plans of big oil. Maine people in general value our state... My father also testified that it takes several miles for a supertanker to come to a stop...

Then there is another saying in Maine, "If you don't like the weather wait five minutes..." Well it has been hot and muggy all summer for the last few years...
http://www.thisblogrules.com/2011/01/the-ten-worst-snowstorms-in-world-history.html

Even if this is some sort of sun cycle... still, oil and coal are dirty fuel sources and cannot be good for human health and life in general over a sustained period of time... They must be replaced with cleaner energy sources. Nuclear energy is also not a long term solution for our energy needs and the fracking used in natural gas is not viable solution either. If our economy and that of the world were not so profit driven our energy crisis would have been solved long ago... I personally believe all natural resources belong to the people in general and not to corporations for their own greedy exploitation. Only a collective global, communal effort can solve our energy needs.

Short term patterns in one micro-climate or specific area are not considered as part of the data when applying to climate science or global warming even by the most hardcore GW scientists. A lot of this stuff has nothing to do with the global warming debate.

The burning of fossil fuels cannot be over looked what ever model you are drawing from... Fossil fuels emit toxins that do not all dissipate into the upper atmosphere... Much of these toxins end up being recycled by the weather and rained down upon our farms and the rich soils we depend upon to sustenance. Anyone for a cup of carbon monoxide? How about some sulfuric acid or some smog soup?

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html

Healthy skeptic I think you are bit delusional... I hate being so blunt but...

Excerpt: 170 pounds of mercury, where just 1/70th of a teaspoon deposited on a 25-acre lake can make the fish unsafe to eat.

It is currently 10:50pm and 66 degrees outside in Maine where I live... September 26, just turned on the AC

You are a funny guy, stating temps in one moment of time, and I am the one that is delusional. Once the polar ice caps are completely melted, I'll finally be able to take that boat ride across the Poles in the summer I've been waiting to do all my life.

Yes that is if the weight distribution does skew the earth topsy-turvy by then. The fact that you would joke about this so sprite shows you have little or no moral and ethical compass.

I forgot that relative temperature has nothing to do with global warming only Fox News big oil corporate politics... (cynical)

I don't watch Fox News unless it is for comedic purposes. So that is the about only thing I can agree on.

The earth's weigh distribution causing the Earth to be knocked out of alignment, now that is funny.

I am more concerned about the other 25 million things that can kill us than I am about some doomsday theory about the world coming to an end from global warming.

We live in a time to where instant gratification trumps thoughts of what our impact on this planet will do create undue hardships for future generations.

The price of a gallon of gas is more important than the price the future will pay due to ignorance and free markets. I would rather pay double for clean energy.