Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!

[MaxWilson]

1.) Your chart stops ten years ago. Temperature hasn't been rising for several years now.

2.) It's still not consistent. Quoting from your own link, "Figure 1 shows a rise of about 0.6 K since 1910 and no trend between 1940-75." Sometimes it rises, sometimes it falls. In the 20th century it rose more often than it fell, and there was a net temperature gain. In some other centuries, there wasn't.

Global mean temperature is not "gradually, and consistently increasing." (Even if you can come up with a sensible definition of a global "mean".)

-Max

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by lch

The joke being that it probably is linked to global warming.

According to the people that take such statistics.. this average global temperature this year is shaping up to be the coldest year in 10 years.

[sum1lost]

Speaking as someone who does know a bit about it, whether or not you believe it is warming, the environment is taking a hell of a beating from something.

BTW, due to various issues, even a small change in climate is pretty devastating, and for a number of species, we are literally on the tipping point.

[JimMorrison]

You can twist and spin all you want, what does it prove?

Yes, one year may be colder or warmer than the last. One decade may or may not show as strong a trend as that before it. We are talking about a simply -massive- system, that apparently is too large for most people to grasp in its entirety.

You can nitpick about my use of the term "consistent", but debating semantics will similarly not dispel the reality of the situation. I use consistent in terms of a geological timescale, not an Americanized ADHD perspective.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories...archstats.html

Originally Posted by NOAA

The average global land temperature last month was the warmest on record and ocean surface temperatures were the 13th warmest. Combining the land and the ocean temperatures, the overall global temperature ranked the second warmest for the month of March. Global temperature averages have been recorded since 1880.

If you'd like, we can discuss what makes a trend, and what does not. But since we have started measuring nearly 150 years ago, the temperature has been rising, and as was pointed out, the rate of overall increase dramatically escalated in the last 30 years.


(EDIT - adding a couple more quotes from this report, for those who don't want to take the time to read it.)

Originally Posted by NOAA

The global land surface temperature was the warmest on record for March, 3.3°F above the 20th century mean of 40.8°F. Temperatures more than 8°F above average covered much of the Asian continent. Two months after the greatest January snow cover extent on record on the Eurasian continent, the unusually warm temperatures led to rapid snow melt, and March snow cover extent on the Eurasian continent was the lowest on record.

Despite above average snowpack levels in the U.S., the total Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was the fourth lowest on record for March, remaining consistent with boreal spring conditions of the past two decades, in which warming temperatures have contributed to anomalously low snow cover extent.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

You can nitpick about my use of the term "consistent", but debating semantics will similarly not dispel the reality of the situation. I use consistent in terms of a geological timescale, not an Americanized ADHD perspective.

No, you're not thinking in geologic timescales. Geologically speaking, we're at a warm spot (but not exceptionally warm, less so than the Medieval Warm Period) in between ice ages. Cold kills crops and causes famine. If you were thinking in geological timescales you'd be worried about the fact that the heat might go away again.

And you're still cherry-picking. "The rate of increase went up dramatically in the last 30 years," you say, but it went to zero in the last ten years. It looks like a worrisome (open-ended) trend only if you cherry-pick your timescale to make it so.

I've said enough for now.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Ah, skip it. I'm talking like a jerk. Sorry, Jim. I'd delete that post but it's past the 30 minute limit.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Hey, it's a heated issue, Max! *rimshot*


But seriously, I understand, I was getting a little riled myself, and as much as it's a good thing to maintain control of one's self in a disagreement, it's equally a good thing to not get upset if your opponent gets a bit terse or combative.


Anyway, all evidence points towards a warming trend that has been lasting for thousands of years now. That coupled with the fact that most life on Earth exists between 35° and 105° Fahrenheit, and it becomes rather important, especially when you talk about an anomolous 1/2 degree jump in 30 years. Globally. That is an enormous amount of material to warm or cool in a measurable manner.

The air is warming, we can see there is consistently (there's that word again!) less snowpack than in decades past, and glaciers are very rapidly receding.

The sea is warming, we can see that arctic/antarctic ice is melting away from passages never before clear in history, also coral reefs that live in very delicate ecosystems, and took thousands of years to grow, are dying off because the water temperatures are rising.


The sad part of all of this, is that everytime any kind of liberal and/or environmental issue surfaces, there is a subculture that is wildly ignorant to any actual facts, who are more than eager to champion that cause, and make total asses out of everyone else who is trying to work off of facts. Meanwhile, this causes a knee-jerk response in more conservative types, who see this obviously reactionary activity, and try to end it. Sometimes the roles are reversed, but for some reason the wildly ignorant conservatives (race-hate-mongers, etc) manage to not scream so loudly as the liberals. But it all makes it hard for us to converge on the facts, and come to agreement as to what those facts actually mean.

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

You know the "Senate Minority Report" now consists of over 650 international scientists who dipute GW. Many of them are current or former IPCC scientists who have turned against it.

Wow, ExxonMobil's doing it again?

- http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_rel...g-tobacco.html

- http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-file...ttertoNick.pdf

(j/k)

Originally Posted by Trumanator

The most dangerous part of the GW activist movement is the growing lawlessness of it.

The most dangerous part of hiding the head under the sand is that we'll continue harming the planet instead

And about vandals... there are idiots everywhere they can damage something, I think (with full respect) you are making an argumentum ad personam

And that's not "a religion". Like is not "a religion" believing in evolution or gravity or whatever. That's just a scientific theory which is gathering datas that -for now- mostly point in the direction that us, burning lots of fossil fuels, are significantly helping something that surely has even other causes, and we need to reduce pollution (which would even have other significant positive effects on environment, so many other wins) and move to greener energy sources.

[llamabeast]

I think global warming wouldn't be remotely controversial if it wasn't so strongly in our interest not to believe in it.

[llamabeast]

Ha, sorry, that was another of my cheerfully provocative posts! I think I shouldn't be allowed to post on politics or global warming. So although I do agree with my previous post, please ignore it if you don't like it, because the way I wrote it as just a single sentence makes it more provocation than argument.