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Global Warming: the sky is falling!

Beerina said:
Actually, there was. I lived through it. My parents even bought a "sudden ice age" thriller novel.

It was supported by the obvious weather patterns outside, the severe, heavy snow winters, etc. etc. etc. Son of a bitch! Those winters were way worse than the decades that preceeded them. Holy ****, the planet is dying! Government command and control of the economy now!

So please stop spreading false, fabricated "information".
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It lasted how many years? Be honest. They even had a thriller printed about it? Can we stick to what the science is saying?

The AGW has been around for 25 years now, and nothing has happened that does not validate the predictions.
 
CapelDodger said:
Lines such as
are, IMO, alarmist and inaccurate. They are grist to the mill for denialists who only wish to paint the whole subject as alarmism. They do not publicise the more considered articles out there in the less-popular press.
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I think this is a good point about exaggerations in the press.

CapelDodger said:
That's the sort of experience that denialists are not keen on publicising.

Playing devil's advocate : Has this situation occurred before in living memory? Or in grandpa's recollections of his grandpa's stories? The Dust-Bowl of the 20's was the result of a 60-80 year drought-cycle that goes way back. It only became extensively ploughed during the wetter period, mostly by incomers who had no collective memory of the place.

Where you are, you may well be tapped into a much older collective memory. Or you may have cashed-up and down-sized to the country life, to be shunned by the locals. :)
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We are fortunate to be tapped in to this collective memory, as you say. We were both born to the life. There are memories of a drought in (I believe) the 30s, and this is remembered because many local wells dried up. There are certain springs that did not go dry that year and these are remembered. However for the most part this area, which is high mountains, normally gets snow every winter. The snow pack of course keeps the streams running, and that is where the irrigation water comes from. In the summer, in July, the monsoons start...... usually. This is not the sort of land that you plow up, but it grows good hay. Usually. I don't think it will this year. When we ask, everyone is worried. This is not normal for this area. Some parts of NM are dry but we are high in the northern mountains and usually get fairly good precip (for this part of the country).
 
bigred said:
? WHAT forests in the Southwest? :cool: OK I'm kinda kidding, but really, when I think "Southwest" I think AZ, etc, ie mostly dirt and rocks anyway.
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Spoken by someone who has obviously never been anywhere near Arizona
 
a_unique_person said:
Less rain falling. Melbourne was supposed to have been 'drought proofed' when it built the Thompson Dam. That was on the assumption that rain patterns did not change. The rain patterns have changed.

That is used up already for many areas.
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Wait... a drought is caused by rain patterns changing, so your drought solution depends on rain patterns not changing? :boggled:
 
The dam was built back in the '70s. It was supposed to have so much extra capacity back then, that the usual droughts would not affect Melbourne. Then the unusual drought appeared. Rather than the usual 2 or 3 years, it went for eight or so years, and there has been no 'catch up' rain yet.
 
Amapola said:
I don't find this alarmist. I read the article and it sounded like the guy was reporting on the situation, which might sound OK to some but sounds bad to me.
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It isn't alarmist to misrepresent the facts, and give factually incorrect information, just so you can sell more papers?

Then what is?
 
a_unique_person said:
The AGW has been around for 25 years now, and nothing has happened that does not validate the predictions.
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The predictions are quite frequently wrong. Look at Hansen's own work which has been highly off the mark in the past. Oh, you mean generalized stuff like "hurricanes will get more severe" and not math and science.

That the world is warmer is a fact. But that doesn't mean you have to accept every weather pattern people don't like as evidence of the models based on that fact being correct.

I have a feeling every drought pattern will be attributed to GW whether or not its accurate and the public at large will just accept it since they are being programmed to be believe it by responsible sources like Time.
 
It is not 'generalised stuff' at all, and Hansen was not wrong. That is yet another misrepresenation from the deniers box of tricks. The predictions are made on the basis that they cannot, of course, be perfectly correct, but correct to a certain degree of certainty.

Warmer temperatures make for stronger hurricanes, and that is proven yet again. The possiblity that other factors may also increase to destabilise the hurricanes is simply misrepresenting what is the funamental aspect of a hurricane, they are heat engines that fire off a warm sea. Shear and other factors may cut them up, but it is wishful thinking to believe that this will happen as much as they get stronger.

The past two seasons have born that out, and it looks like another stinker heading your way. The past season had the most cat 5 hurricanes ever, and, even allowing for the better instrumenation now that can decide that, nothing in the past has approached the broad range of records broken, for the breadth of the season, and it's power, and destructiveness. They even had a hurricane hit Spain last year, unheard of.

The recent occurance of tropical cylcones in the South Atlantic, where they were previously they were unknown, was predicted by the English models.

http://flhurricane.com/cyclone/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tb2006&Number=64550&page=&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1
 
corplinx said:
I have a feeling every drought pattern will be attributed to GW whether or not its accurate and the public at large will just accept it since they are being programmed to be believe it by responsible sources like Time.
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Australia has been living with droughts for the past 5,000 years or so (IIRC). Drought is a normal part of living here, but not droughts of the severity we are experiencing now. Fresh water systems that were planned to provide for the current population, (which is pretty well static), are failing around the country.

At the same time, in the USA, there have been wildfires in the middle of winter, a 'once in a hundred years' heat wave, the polar ice caps and greenland glaciers are contracting, (even if the warming is allowing some extra snow to fall to partly compensate).
 
a_unique_person said:
Which parts of the article were factually incorrect?
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The part that says the southpole is melting(which yes, some part is, but overall the southpole is NOT melting, the ice layer has been increasing for the last 30 years, even including those areas that are melting.).
 
a_unique_person said:
you accept the rest is correct?
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Does it matter?? i just said it was alarmist, it is alarmist, it doesn't really matter if the rest is aok, but ok, i'll humor you.

I give you, the letterman list(well, ok, not really)

Ok lets see what they have.

1) Statement that GW will happen very very fast (i don't believe that)
2) Blame GW for heatwaves, storms, floods and glacial melting (I don't believe 0.6C change can do that)
3) The global climate is booby-trapped(probably true to some extend, but i don't know)
4) North and south pole is melting ( Southpole isn't, north pole has been for quite some time)
5) Greenland is melting ( FALSE )
6) Stating that the ice on the poles reflect light and heat out, so when they melt everything will happen faster (Probably true to a certain extend, but besides for the North Pole i don't really know of any big area of ice that is melting, and both Greenland and the Southpole is increasing).
7) Organic matter in cased in ice MAY transform into CO2 (They don't say how much, nor how fast, nor with what probability. It is just Fear Uncertainty and Doubt in that statement, sorry, alarmist is what it is)
8) Drought ( i don't know that it is increasing, i don't know that it is increasing more or less than what can be expected )
9) Fires ( i don't know that it is increasing, i don't know that it is increasing more or less than what can be expected )
10) Melting ice in alaska kills fish ( Maybe true, but i'm not convinced that the melting ice in alaska is caused by AGW, and haven't just been melting naturaly for the last 2000 years, nor have i heard about the melting ice in alaska before)
11) No sea ice in 2060 ( ********, both greenland and the southpole is increasing in mass, yes greenland is maybe not "sea ice" but big parts of the southpole are, afaik, anyways, still ********)
12) Dying polar bears ( *shrug* if they live only the north pole, then it isn't really us since that has been melting for a long long time, if they don't only live on the northpole, then what is the problem, they will survive somewhere else, like greenland or the southpole).
13) Celebrate Kyoto and be mean to Bush ( I think the Kyoto Treaty is mostly a waste of money, and it is very unfortunate that the money isn't going to the developing countries instead. Bashing Bush i'm fine with though)
14) 10 people going to Antarctica, New Zealand and Australia, and seeing "something" that made them "open their eyes" ( Hm, i can't really argue against that, they probably did have 10 people going there, and got them convinced, that doesn't, however, prove that the southpole is melting, nor that the drought in Australia is caused by global warming)
15) Statement that cities have said they will meet the Kyoto treaty ( can't argue with that, except i think the money would be better spend in other places).

So, that is 15 points.
Agree : 0
Disagree : 3
Don't know : 12

If they had formulated their language differently (ie, saying "there may be a problem with CO2 from decomposing matter contained within melting ice, and we should investigate that", then i would agree, but they didn't do that. so.)

Sincerely
Tobias
 
TobiasTheCommie said:
The part that says the southpole is melting(which yes, some part is, but overall the southpole is NOT melting, the ice layer has been increasing for the last 30 years, even including those areas that are melting.).
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Not true. Recent studies have confirmed that Antarctica is melting in total, depsite that there is a region where the ice is thickening. (And even that is due to GW -- it's an area where it used to be too cold for percipitation.)

March 3, 2006 The Antarctic ice sheet shrank significantly during the past three years, according to the findings of a NASA study released on Thursday.

Using data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), scientists concluded that Antarctica's ice sheet decreased by about 152 cubic kilometers annually from April 2002 to August 2005.
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article
 
varwoche said:
Not true. Recent studies have confirmed that Antarctica is melting in total, depsite that there is a region where the ice is thickening. (And even that is due to GW -- it's an area where it used to be too cold for percipitation.)

article
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Ah, new data. Oki, i'll look at it.


My data only goes to 2004.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATAS...rea.anomalies.Antarctic-Total.1978-2004.s.gif

While i look at that, please take a look at this


Visitors ignore extreme risks of advancing glaciers

- 12 Jan 06 - The New Zealand Department of Conservation is worried that someone
will be killed as giant chunks of ice fall from rapidly advancing glaciers. The risk of ice
collapse at the face of the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers is high and visitors are ignoring
warning signs.

Both glaciers are advancing at the rate of about three feet (one meter) a week.

Up to 1000 people visit Fox Glacier daily, and 2700 visit Franz Josef.
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/7/story.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10363304
 
Hm, ok, i must admit that the GRACE measurements are quite annoying, damn you and your pesky facts :)

Hehe, i can't find any reason to distrust the GRACE measurements. Though i must admit that i can't really understand them, but i can't use lack of understanding as knowledge.

So, for now, i'll say that to the best of my knowledge the ice layer has been increasing since 1974, but as of 2002 it has started decreasing.

Now, this might just be a temporary thing, and it may start increasing again later, in my graph it was decreasing betwen 1996 and 1998 for instance, but still an overall netto increase.

But then again, it may be a permantent thing. I guess time will tell.

Don't contradict me with facts, i'll just lose the argument.

Sincerely
Tobias
It is still alarmist though.
 
TobiasTheCommie said:
*shrug* if you want
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/Ice_Age.html
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Can you provide me any information about this web site, or better yet provide a source I can rely upon? I'm disinclined to consider 21stcenturysciencetech a valid data source given this from their about page...
Original studies by the controversial economist Lyndon LaRouche...
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Add: A few clicks later and I discover that the LaRouche connection is not incidental. This is Fusion Magazine renamed ... LaRouche drivel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Science_and_Technology
 
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The old data for Antartica was, melting in the oceanic sheet, thickening in the icecap. Mind you, part of the reason the oceanic sheet was "melting" was because when the big sheet broke off the glaciers had less resistance and could move to sea more quickly.

The new data suggests that the icecap itself is losing mass. I would have to check the research more closely on the icecap mass loss though since it seems to counter the thickening other have reported. I haven't had time yet to read that report in full. It may be a case of thickening in some parts, melting in others. If the net effect is mass loss, then that is very troublesome.
 
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