Global Warming, where is it?

BobF said:
Still waiting for the charts to begin to show some real signs of global warming. It has to be something that can really cause hardship for people. Gaining more mild climate territories will allow the farming areas to expand and that means all people and animals will have a better time of eating and living better.
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I've seen several "charts" regarding global warming....from many different sources, and the All show a gradual warming of the planet. They can't All be wrong. With regard to expanding areas of farming....yes, some of the more Northern areas may get mild enough to grow crops, but that will probably be offset by Southern areas becoming too hot and dry to continue productive agriculture. Then, there is the problem of vast amounts of Methane gas locked into these Northern lands...Canada, Alaska, and especially Siberia...from frozen rotted vegetation. If these areas begin to melt sufficiently to begin releasing that Methane, it will make use of fossil fuels seem paltry by comparison. Methane is far more effective than CO2 in trapping the atmospheric heat, which would send the warming up by substantial margins. There is already a lot of concern about the amount of Methane being released by "cow farts", and millions of tons of that gas frozen in the northern tundra's and the depths of the oceans.

However, our generation has little to fear from changes in the climate...we will all be long gone by the time it becomes a major issue....but if you have grandkids, and beyond, they are going to live in a far different world than we do.
 

Lara said:
The NY Times says most of the fires in California recently have been caused by humans. Some by downed power lines from winds. Also, the number of fires is sketchy because when a fire is close enough to ignite another fire they sometimes count them separately:

"Among the thousands of wildfires recorded in California in recent years, most have been caused by human activity: sparks from rocks sliced by lawn mower blades; children playing with fire; arson; fireworks; welding torches; even satanic rituals."

“If there are high velocity winds, there’s every reason to suspect that power lines are a source,” said Jon E. Keeley, a fire expert with the United States Geological Survey in California. “We have many documented cases of power lines igniting fires during these high wind events."

"In the case of this month’s fires, investigators are treating the 17 suspected ignition points separately. But many of the fires merged and it remains possible that embers from one fire could have started what are currently being classified as separate fires."
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Interesting Lara, here's an article that mentions the fires can't be blamed solely on weather events, it also overpopulation and poor planning in these areas. So that may be one factor that might be fueling these wildfires. More here.

As these accounts suggest, threatening wildfires are frequently portrayed as a byproduct of warming weather, stubborn high-pressure zones and dry western landscapes. But what about the institutions, reckless policies and billions of dollars worth of financial incentives that help produce dense human settlements and immense social risks on these landscapes?

Typically absent from the discussion are the powerful social and economic forces that turn historically active fire regimes into a string of deadly and costly wildfire disasters.


Across the Western United States, areas at the wildland urban interface have seen a 300 percent population growth rate in the past 50 years. As of 2012, 46 million homes were located in the WUI. Based on current trends, that number is expected to increase to 54 million by 2022.


The most alarming suburbanization statistic, however, concerns what hasn’t been developed. As of 2008, only 14 percent of private land in areas at the wildland urban interface of the Western United States had undergone land conversion. By 2013, this number increased to 16 percent and will continue rising without growth limitation policies in place.


And where new developments do occur, cities should do better to acknowledge their high exposure to fire. Large swaths of areas impacted by the Wine Country Fires, including the Coffey Park Neighborhood in Santa Rosa and the Rockridge Neighborhood in the Oakland/Berkeley Hills, were not originally zoned as “Very High Fire Risk”. As a result, building codes were lax and did not include fire safe provisions.

Moreover, municipal infrastructure such as narrow roads, exposed power lines and inadequate water conveyance systems hindered emergency response activities.

This leads us to a second and more fundamental “perfect storm” problem. Such language suggests that an unlucky and unpreventable alignment of environmental conditions is always required to make the unthinkable happen.


This is flawed logic. The conditions leading to the Northern California Wine Country and Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire disasters were neither unlucky nor unpreventable.
And such large fire disasters, while undesirable, should never be viewed as unthinkable. The truth is, we knew these fires were possible and that there were inherent dangers when these communities were built.


How did we know? The historically active fire regime in California and across the American West stands as a stark and foreboding reminder of these perilous landscapes.
And yet, despite fully comprehending these immense fire risks, cities have continued to plan and extend human settlements further into already fire-prone areas. And this is on the heels, and sometimes coinciding with, many decades of intentional fire suppression policies which enabled fuel build-up across the Western United States.


As I argue in “Flame and Fortune in the American West”, we tend to ignore these seemingly obvious risks because suburban landscapes are decidedly lucrative landscapes. These are areas that generate high levels of profit and revenue for interested parties near and far. This includes landholders, property developers, members of the construction industry, and city and county property tax offices, to name but a few.


The recent fires in Northern California were not the result of a perfect storm of unlucky factors or unforeseen conditions. Quite the contrary we could see these fires and their disastrous outcomes coming decades in advance. It was only a matter of time.


Rather than pointing to unruly ecological conditions when explaining costly wildfires, we need to recognize the role society’s ravenous appetite to develop historically high-risk areas plays. Only then can we start to reverse calamitous urban planning trends.
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SeaBreeze said:
The conditions leading to the Northern California Wine Country and Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire disasters were neither unlucky nor unpreventable.And such large fire disasters, while undesirable, should never be viewed as unthinkable. The truth is, we knew these fires were possible and that there were inherent dangers when these communities were built.

How did we know? The historically active fire regime in California and across the American West stands as a stark and foreboding reminder of these perilous landscapes. And yet, despite fully comprehending these immense fire risks, cities have continued to plan and extend human settlements further into already fire-prone areas. And this is on the heels, and sometimes coinciding with, many decades of intentional fire suppression policies which enabled fuel build-up across the Western United States.

As I argue in “Flame and Fortune in the American West”, we tend to ignore these seemingly obvious risks because suburban landscapes are decidedly lucrative landscapes. These are areas that generate high levels of profit and revenue for interested parties near and far. This includes landholders, property developers, members of the construction industry, and city and county property tax offices, to name but a few.
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Thank you for these extra reasons for the recent California fires. It's unconscionable that developers, land investors, and the city are partially responsible for 42 deaths and vast destruction due to their desire to generate high profit and revenue for domestic and foreign investors in known high risk areas. Sad.
 

Cap'nSacto said:
I don't count myself among deniers. The climate is changing. I may have missed a post or two; I didn't see any that deny it.

My point (earlier) was that increased temperature of the ocean's surfaces (which total 71% of the surface of the earth, Camper) effects major ocean currents, bringing to land masses record snowfalls as well as record high temperatures.
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The increase in temperatures of the earth and of the oceans is within the norms.

Here's the thing. Humans are blamed. This has been happening without any human intervention for centuries.

As for believing scientists? Remember the cigarette advertisements?

No one can predict the future based on computer models.

Question. Oceans warming up. This is the claim when temperatures fail to meet the predictions. O.K. Where did the heat go before and how much have they warmed up.

They are getting record lobster harvests in northeastern United States.

If we could extend the growing season it would be a good thing.
 
Warrigal said:
How about the ten hottest annual mean temperatures have all happened this century?

How about the fire seasons in both hemispheres stretching out by starting earlier and finishing later so that there is now overlap between them that did not happen before? Australia and America used to share assets and manpower to fight wild fires but now these are likely to be needed at the same time in both countries.

How about the increasing frequency of super cells that are of hitherto unprecedented diameter that are causing devastation that requires massive investment by taxpayers to rebuild whole electricity systems, dams, levies and private property?

Then there is the effect on fisheries if the Great Barrier Reef dies. This ecosystem is the nursery of species and when it dies the fish stocks will be severely reduced. Those who can afford it will still eat fish but poor countries that rely heavily on the sea for sustenance will have to find other forms of protein. There will always be seaweed. Coral bleaching is occurring with alarming frequency lately - like every year. Not new, but happening annually now.

I could go on but if the data collected all around the world does not shout out a warning then neither will these signs of a trend that will be very costly to deal with for the developed world and which will force the world's poor to commence a new period of mass migration which is how humans have traditionally responded to strong periods of climate change.

Think of the impact of this years California wildfires, while on the other side of the country three intense hurricanes were wrecking whole cities.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech...map-how-deadly-wildfires-spreading/759038001/

Note that these fires cause deaths, loss of property and livelihood, dangerous air quality away from the fires and loss of animals, orchards and crops. Yes fires have always done this but when they occur more frequently with stronger winds driving them we begin to see the folly of not trying to limit human impact on the atmosphere.
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Tell me how all this has impacted your lifestyle other than needless worry?
 
Camper6 said:
You have it backwards. I want global warming and can't get it. That was my point.Where the heck is it?
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The changes taking place are Very subtle and gradual. No one of our ages will experience any noticeable effects...especially if you live in Canada. However, when you start thinking in terms of decades, or centuries, the probabilities of drastic effects, for future generations, become more understandable. I'm not an experts on climatology, but I trust those who study this phenomenon, and believe their overwhelming conclusions. It may take 100, or more years, before your locale sees a Winter with little or no snow, but that time is most likely coming. Those who face the greatest danger are the millions who live in low lying coastal regions, as the oceans slowly rise. Places like Florida, and much of the Gulf and Eastern seaboards will be flooded...can you imagine the social chaos that will occur when all these major cities begin to look like Atlantis???
 
Don M. said:
The changes taking place are Very subtle and gradual. No one of our ages will experience any noticeable effects...especially if you live in Canada. However, when you start thinking in terms of decades, or centuries, the probabilities of drastic effects, for future generations, become more understandable. I'm not an experts on climatology, but I trust those who study this phenomenon, and believe their overwhelming conclusions. It may take 100, or more years, before your locale sees a Winter with little or no snow, but that time is most likely coming. Those who face the greatest danger are the millions who live in low lying coastal regions, as the oceans slowly rise. Places like Florida, and much of the Gulf and Eastern seaboards will be flooded...can you imagine the social chaos that will occur when all these major cities begin to look like Atlantis???
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You don't give humans enough credit for ingenuity.

Huge channels like like the Panama Canal watering the deserts.
 
Big Horn said:
Only the ignorant believe that belief is a valid scientific term. The culmination of scientific method is the propounding of a theory that is subject to disproof. Belief is contrary to scientific method.
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:tongue:
 
Camper6 said:
You don't give humans enough credit for ingenuity.
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That's right...everywhere I look I see evidence of human errors and lack of concern. By the time the people, and governments, wake up to reality, it will be too little, too late. Between Climate Change and unchecked population growth, humans seem determined to prove the biblical predictions of Armageddon. Personally, I don't give it much past the latter years of this century before things really start going downhill.
 
Hurricane Irma increased it's size to 400 miles due to the incredibly warm surface ocean temps. Over 82 degrees. It may have been warmer but I don't have the final stats nor the historical stats to compare to. I just know it was an unusually warm ocean surface. There are 4 other reasons why hurricanes strengthen as well though.
 
I wonder what the denier's fall back position will be when the shit really hits the fan?

Which it will.

Are they still going to sy it's just part of the natural cycle of things?
 
Camper6 said:
This is what I woke up to this morning. I haven't seen snow before Halloween since I was trick and treating in 1940.
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This picture of Fairbanks from last winter shows the cold is definitely hanging on. However after spending several decades around the North Slope where the ground is permanently frozen we find that now it is "slowly" melting. No... not the fault of humanity but just a cycle the earth goes through.

Fairbanks cold2.jpg
 

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A few years back folks were watching the charts and often times they were going down each year. We had some real global warming folks say it will warm up and give the planet a bad time. I think they were just anticipating this warming curve. But who knows if they were right or not. Maybe now, in the midst of this warming spell we might one day see it turn into a short term or beginning of a colder spell which will then cause all the global warmers to want more of the warmth to melt the new piles of ice and snow. Look back over temp changes and some not so long go warmer and others not so hot come and go. Take all the politics out of it and we have changing climate on this earth that none of us seem to be able to predict or change. How long has it been to change by a half degree? Any one found a guarantee that it will never change again?

Burning coal will destroy the world. There are articles about coal burning and some fires have been said to be thousands of years old. China being one like that and other areas like Germany, or US, or anywhere that coal is natural, can and will catch fire and continue to burn for many years, even when fought by the peoples that don't like the smokes.
 
The theory is that burning fossil fuels causes the greenhouse effect that causes global warming.

Therefore if that's true we are doomed because we need vehicles for transportation of food and the necessities of life and personal transportation.

No one is going to give up their vehicles. Not even the ones who support AGW including those that are posting here.

Oh by the way . There's no way to cap the thousands of volcanoes in the world but somehow the supporters say volcanoes contribute to cooling.

So far as it says in the Bible. It has not come to pass.
 
Folks we've been told the science is settled.
The conversation is over.

There was a study and a paper was written and here it is.

I think all you have to do is read the abstract to understand how absurd it is, and here's the abstract.

Abstract:
We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewedscientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climatechange’ or ‘global warming’.

We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsedAGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming.

Among abstracts expressinga position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.
In a secondphase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers.
Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage ofself-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%).
Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW,97.2% endorsed the consensus.
For both abstract ratings and authors’ self-ratings, the percentage of endorsementsamong papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time.
Our analysis indicates thatthe number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.
Keywords: scientific consensus, anthropogenic global warming, peer-review, global climate change,Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

So the truth is 32.6% of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11,944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’ believe that man is the main made.

But we've moved from global warming to climate change.

Climate Change is obviously real.
The climate is always changing.
We put stuff into the air that is harmful, and we're working on reducing it.

The notion that we are the main contributor though is nonsense.
 
Camper6 said:
There has been a big change in waste management and pollution since I was a boy.

I can believe man is a contributor but I cannot believe man is the cause.
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I am presently sitting at a place that was once underwater in a tropical sea. A few hours from me is the Blue Forest, once a place of spectacular palms. The trees are still there, but they're a few feet underground and fossilized. The face and weather of this inconsequential planet will continue to change with or without the presence of one insignificant but terribly arrogant species.
 

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