Frosty Blast of Reality for the 'Global Warming' Crowd

Ah, global warming. There's arguments all over the place. Is it happening? Is it not happening?

Monthly fluctuations happen all the time. The Little Ice Age (about 1250 through about 1850) was, in part, caused by low North Atlantic Oscillations. But if more icebergs melt into the oceans (due to warmer overall weather), that can cool the climate. Confusing, no?

The truth is - no one knows because there isn't enough data. Good temperature records have been kept for fewer than 200 years of the planet's 4 1/2 - 5 1/2 billion year history.

Does this mean there is no global warming? No. Does this mean there is global warming? No. It just means there has to be more study.

Oh - there is a warming trend. The retreat of glaciers, melting of ice shelves etc shows that.


Question is, is it a natural shift, or due to greenhouse gasses, and is it a normal peak, or an ongoing process?

And can we change the trend, if we ever determine what it is, and is it worth the costs?

Well, at least it is warmer than before.

Today, I still saw some couple of swallows around here: usually they are away since the early September (an old German saying goes: "Mary's birth [September, 8], swallows fly southwards" ['Mariä Geburt zieh'n die Schwalben furt']).

The cuckoo has problems finding nests, where he can lay the eggs: when he does so, all nest are already occupied due to the fact that the other birds start breeding 3 to 4 weeks earlier because the return 3 to 4 weeks earlier.
(interestingly, the cuckoo doesn't start his "business" earlier as well: instead, he retrieds to mountain regions, where the other birds start breeding later.)

By the way, "Global warming" doesn't mean that the entire world warms up at the same level -- it means, in part, more extreme weather in either direction. Records being set. And, ya know, hurricanes and stuff like that.

Folks you are preaching Buddha to Jerry Falwell here......

Buddha's good.

I'm developing a gas powered hand warmer. I'm cold.

As noted, there still isn't enough data to really report on "global warming". Have any of you seen the pics of Mars with what they call seeps? It is a melting of the ice on Mars. What could be causing melting of ice on Mars if they have almost no atmosphere? Could it be a change in the level of radiation put out by the Sun? The Sun is known to have years of higher and lower radiation out put. It comes in spouts of about 11 years. We just came out of an 11-year high of solar activity and this happens to be the same time frame of record high temps across the world.

So, that'd be global warming. Caused by the radiation levels of the sun, caused by fossil fuel emissions, caused by both, caused by neither... but the data indicating that warming is happening seems to be there, by your own account.

That may be true, but the point is are we looking in the right places? If global warming is coming from solar radiation, are "green house gases" really to blame?

I don't understand why global warming is such a topic of debate for people of religion anyway.

The sun does feel hotter than it used to and the rays seem to be more bright. There is weird weather happening all over the place and has been for quite a few years.

On the other hand what about the ice age that we hear so much about. Maybe this is just one of those kinds of stages and will work itself out. (don't know much about science one way or another it being second to least favorite subject)

In any event I don't see why it is a source of contraversary between religionist and secularist.

Why is it that people of religion can't talk about science? I'm not a person of religion but I do beleive in God. I look at science as a way on how God has done things and the best way for humanity to explain the phisical world of God.

I read that in a Newsweek poll, 17% said that they expect the world to end in their lifetime. I suspect those folks aren't overly concerned with global warming. Or any other scientific topics, for that matter...

Source: NOAA U.S. WINTER OUTLOOK

This is less significant to global warming but more to the future costs of your central heating :wink:

I wonder how this affects those predictions?

The solar increase has nothing to do with global warming, contrary to what the GOP would like you to believe. In fact,the solar constant,which is on an 11 year cycle, increased dramatically during the 60's, yet there was no direct global effect.

Now, lets look at the facts. The earth does go through cyclical changes, but they have never been as drastic as in the past 20 years. We do have data, contrary to peoples beliefs, on the climate over the past couple of hundred-thousand years. This data is generated through ice core samples.

The sun has had a period of 40 years of increased sun spot activity, but this again does not correlate to the increase in temperature. The increase of activity from the sun creates a solar incidence of less then 0.05% in intensity, no where near the amount of energy required to increase the earth 1 degree.

We have doubled the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere and we know this DOES have an effect of increasing temperature. To what effect, we don't know, but it definitely increases the temperature.

We have released the CO2 into the atmosphere mostly through emissions from oil and coal (Energy). The earth has a way of thwarting the greenhouse effect by burying excess CO2 into the earth, this is where oil and coal come into play. By using large amounts of both coal and oil, we are in essence flooding the atmosphere with carbon, this is the direct reason the % of CO2 has doubled.

Now, why the sudden "turn" of ideology towards a supposed "non global warming" trend? Well, the overwhelming majority of scientists disagree with this notion. They KNOW CO2 directly effects the earth's climate and we are currently increasing CO2 output at greater and greater rates. The only reason there is a debate right now is because of the current administration.

Look at the two industries which produce the largest amount of pollution, oil and coal, and look at Bush's past history and direct linking with those industries and you have our answer. They get scientists who "sell their soul" to take federal grant money to debunk global warming. They then use these scientists to justify their radical pollution agenda. They have allowed both coal and oil plants to increase their emissions because they claim global warming doesn't exist.

If anyone wants to get into a real debate without posting crap articles to back their position, I'll be glad to.

As for the NOAA data, it shows one month which was below average, should I gather data over the past 20 years which shows contrary information? It's stuff like this that dupes people into thinking the wrong way. Politics should NEVER decide science theory, yet again and again, we continue to see this administration spin scientific research to agree with their agenda. It's just one more was Bush has lied to the American people.

It is not coming from solar radiation, here is the data from the "increase" of solar activity. If it was in effect coming from solar activity, and not greenhouse gases, we would have had a sharp increase in temperature in the 60's, yet it didn't.

I didn't know this was a GOP stance? I haven't seen anything on how the GOP has stated what I said. I thought I was making an original statement by just looking around the universe. Could you please find this data on how the GOP has blamed all of this on solar radiation?

As for the rest of it, could you please explain the "seeps" on Mars then? If they didn't come from increased solar radiation then how come we have ice melting on Mars?

You need to explain your neat little graph that you posted, it doesn't explain anything but possible solar radiation output from the sun but it doesn't even explain that. It has no reference to what the output is and no temp correlations. This might help prove your statement.