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Record Low Temps

  • #21
My biggest beef with the global warming debacle is the hastiness to correlate it to emissions produced by humans. Even if there is global warming it is a LONG stretch to say it is because of people. I think I would agree with Rattler in that we are entering a part of a cycle that has happened before and inevitably will continue to happen.

Humans contribute at most 5% of the CO2 many are blaming for the heating trend. Even if global warming is true, it's not because of what we are doing... we can't stop a natural cycle by simply banning SUVs and planting more trees. What is happening will continue to happen until we work our way out of the current trend. THAT being said, I also believe we are to be responsible and respectful of nature. Any person who uses the rationale I posed as a means to act irresponsibly is an idiot.

My 2 cents. If you are interested there is MUCH data on both sides of the subject. Just don't get your lesson from a politician posing as a climate expert ;)
 
  • #22
methane and water vapor are MUCH worse greenhouse gasses than CO2.........by a long shot....
 
  • #23
How does warmer translate to colder winters ?

Global warming means that the atmosphere, as a whole, has more heat energy. But that doesn't mean that all temperatures will be higher than their local average; it means that there's more power behind weather systems. The dark side of the earth still cools against the vacuum of space, and the poles still get colder when they shift seasonally out of the sun's light. There are still temperature differences to induce air currents, but they don't follow quite the same pattern that they did at a lower total energy.
I think the biggest difference is that these changes cause the jet stream to shift. Because the jet stream is one of the main air currents that moves weather systems around, can have a great effect on local trends.
The earth isn't a ping-pong ball; it has a bumpy, irregular surface made out of many different materials. Where the wind flows matters a lot. Sunlight striking the ocean creates relatively cool, moist air; sunlight on a sandy desert makes the air hot, dry and turbulent. Mountains channel wind along their length, and when clouds try to cross over their peak, it creates rain. Forests slow the wind, humidify the air, and change its gas composition (by absorbing heavy, sinking CO2 and emitting O2.)
So far as causes, I think it's really hard to pin it to any one thing that we're doing. Gas emissions could be a big part of it, but it could also have a lot to do with deforestation or biological processes in the ocean. It concerns me more that we know that certain activities, like heavy agriculture, contribute to ecological degradation but don't really do anything about it. That the climate happens to be the next natural process going haywire is just a little more distressing than previous stakes, but it's more or less all a part of the same problem. What compels me about the global warming interpretation is that things are changing at a pace that doesn't seem to follow with what we can tell about historical weather patterns. I just want to be able to buy oranges that weren't grown in a lab when I'm an old man.

Humans contribute at most 5% of the CO2 many are blaming for the heating trend.

By that do you mean the total CO2 in the atmosphere, or additional CO2 above the average quantity that's apparently spiked since the early 1900s? That statement could mean two very different things depending on how you parse it.
~Joe
 
  • #24
Rattler, they may be worse, but it is scientifically accepted that the dominant greenhouse gas is in fact CO2. This is the point to which I am speaking.

Seedjar, good question. I am referring to both accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere and its concentration. I realize there are differing views, but the 5% contribution at most is the view I stand on.

Phil
 
  • #25
It's not just America who are having a cold spell! We have a foot of snow and beat our previous cold record for this county with -17.6C last night (0.32F)

So close to the magic 0!
 
  • #26
-32*F this morning.....have a breeze aswell so factor in windchill and it feels like -50*F.........the truck was plugged in last night and it still wasnt happy bout starting this morning....
 
  • #27
Climate change data dumped

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.
Related Links

* The great climate change science scandal

* EU figurehead says climate change a myth

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

The CRU is the world’s leading centre for reconstructing past climate and temperatures. Climate change sceptics have long been keen to examine exactly how its data were compiled. That is now impossible.

Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

Jones was not in charge of the CRU when the data were thrown away in the 1980s, a time when climate change was seen as a less pressing issue. The lost material was used to build the databases that have been his life’s work, showing how the world has warmed by 0.8C over the past 157 years.

He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global warming is a threat to humanity.
 
  • #28
Check us out!

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  • #29
Alexis,
cool pic!
I suppose it very rare to have the whole UK covered in snow?

Here is a photo of "Lake Effect" snow (from a few years ago)

743961980_4Tnnc-O.jpg


thats Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron in the photo.
I get this snow off of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario..
we have had 2" to 3" every day for the past week straight..
and no signs of stopping..

Last weekend, areas between Rochester & Oswego NY got FOUR FEET of snow in a few days!

Scot
 
  • #30
We aren't the sole cause of climate change, but to deny we are contributing to that change as a whole of inhuman humanity is deplorable. We do have a collective effect, period. If you don't believe it you really need to get your head out of your crevice. Nature conservancies (such as Nat. Geographic, with more and more emphasis on the graphic) are documenting our destruction of ecosystems due to multiple chemical byproducts emissions into all water supplies in the world. We are effecting the world atmosphere negatively. I read in Newsweek where a guy came up with an air scrubbing system that could restore the atmosphere. The panels would have to equal the Great Wall of China. This can be done, the G.W.C. was built. We're just not together on it. But that's crazy talk. Just think about it, even though Al gore has made a McDonald's mockery of our impact, to deny our blame for what we do to every living thing on the planet is reprehensible, if not completely evil. We are already paying the price, but not like nature is.

---------- Post added at 04:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:19 PM ----------

methane and water vapor are MUCH worse greenhouse gasses than CO2.........by a long shot....

Good point. We greatly increase those too.

---------- Post added at 04:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:22 PM ----------

And to Jim Scott, I've heard the arguments for years. The scientific forecasting program in place cannot even retrodict, much less predict the the weather scenario. Who cares. The amphibians are disappearing everywhere. They are one of the most permeable genus on the planet. Imagine turning on your car and staying in the garage. Now look at the jet planes leaving chem-trails through every inch of the world's sky and now imagine standing behind one and breathing the exhaust... in a warehouse. "Well that's different". Because then you would see the effects. We are too destroying our environment, rapidly.

I'm not an activist, hippy or what have you. When I hear people dismiss our guilt in this because 'Global Warming' is a joke I become so incredibly frustrated I can't hardly bear how ignorant as a species we are so ready to be.
 
  • #31
uhhh.....alot of the disappearing frogs can be linked to a fungus, chytrid......largely due to man im sure....pollutants aswell but those are separate issues from the global warming BS.....
 
  • #32
I'm not an activist, hippy or what have you. When I hear people dismiss our guilt in this because 'Global Warming' is a joke I become so incredibly frustrated I can't hardly bear how ignorant as a species we are so ready to be.
[/QUOTE]


I don't think anyone ever said we are not contributing nor did anyone say that we should dismiss our guilt. I was simply saying most are getting their meteorology lessons from politicians that are trying to leverage the entire situation to the tune of trillions of dollars. And that MOST CERTAINLY is a concern and I do care.


Phil
 
  • #33
thats Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron in the photo.
I get this snow off of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario..
we have had 2" to 3" every day for the past week straight..
and no signs of stopping..

Last weekend, areas between Rochester & Oswego NY got FOUR FEET of snow in a few days!

Scot

That's a great shot. It's pretty unusual for the entire UK to be snow covered, but we can't match the amount you get from the lake effect! Any photos?
 
  • #34
We didn't really have a big snow today or record lows (it was maybe -10?) but it was blowing and everyone was going like 20 MPH. There were cars flipped over and smashed up and upside down on both sides of the highway all the way to work. When I was able to get up to about 40 MPH the car started fishtailing so I just decided I'd go 20 and be late and the company can deal with it. But I was only about 10 minutes late making my 15 minute commute about 55 - I always in get early so I can read a book or the paper before starting but not today and I needed that 1/2 hour reading & relaxing time after driving today!
 
  • #36
Well... the official low forecast for tonight in San Antonio, TX: 13 degrees. For those of you that don't realize it... for central Texas that is COLD. I took extra care and covered my minibogs with tarps to block out the wind and keep the frost out. Hang in there guys :)
 
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