A Global Warming Poll

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jbarnhart @ Aug 15 2006, 03:39 AM) [snapback]303416[/snapback]</div>

 

Godiva you pretty much nailed the direction of this topic

as far as where Olympia temps are taken, its at the Airport. this area is used because.... its an airport. a huge area, paved for years, (1948 or i believe) huge area undeveloped for the obvious reasons (something about high rises and landing patterns i guess). there is the usual development going on around the airport and that is booming but i the change is probably too far away from where measurements are taken. which is on an old wooden airplane hanger next to the state patrol station.

and if not mistaken, i believe that 118º temp (or close to it) was broken last month.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Aug 15 2006, 05:07 PM) [snapback]303761[/snapback]</div>

First, nice rims on that Prius, very cool.

Thank you for the info. appreciate the effort. I went through your post and links (but I haven't read the books yet). As you stated, climate change is not static but always changing (dynamic) for about 4 billion years. The change has been more rapid the last 1 billion years ("recently") or so. That makes climate change a very complex thing to analyze, with many variables to measure hence difficult to make decisions about. Toss onto the pile trying to figure out the human impact with all the variables and well, its sort of a mess. What control can be used ? What is baseline ? The real experiment to find out human impact can't be done.

Am I correct that the Snowball Earth PowerPoint you referenced has a slide that suggests because the oxygen levels went up about 700 million years ago animals and mammals like us became possible. Which could mean that Global Warming is the reason humans presently infest the planet but that it may only be only "briefly". Scary thought.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fibb222 @ Aug 15 2006, 06:27 PM) [snapback]303799[/snapback]</div>

Clearly averages can hide the answer. I think we're looking for human impact on the change. The outliers are what you want to study. Since climate change itself is dynamic and has been changing for 4 billion years, changes are important. It could be that there was an uptick for a reason due to or independent of human impact.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 16 2006, 11:12 AM) [snapback]304126[/snapback]</div>

While the outliers are interesting to look at, they say little about climate, as they are just single points in time. It's the averages that are important for climate research.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 16 2006, 09:12 AM) [snapback]304126[/snapback]</div>

Karnac, No way! I can't believe you are incapable of seeing that averages ARE the answer - they don't hide the answer. A one-day temperature record carries no weight, has no value when compared to years of data compiled together to show a trend.

In effect, you are trying to say that less data describes reality better than more data.

Overwhelming evidence shows that compared to several decades ago, the AVERAGE temperature of the Earth is higher now. And it is higher average temperatures that makes for smaller and smaller glaciers and ice sheets all around the globe. This is a fact.

It is also true that humans have release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

And... more CO2 in the atmosphere prevents more of the sun's energy from escaping into space.

Is this a problem? Well Duh!

 

An ON topic greeting card.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 16 2006, 08:59 AM) [snapback]304120[/snapback]</div>

Thanks Karnac

I agree that is is a bit of a mess and trying to figure out the exact impact of anthropogenic factors is very difficult but we do know what each of the chemicals found in the atmosphere do as well as the chemicals we as humans produce and we have a good estimate of the amount of these chemicals we release each year. With that knowledge its easy to hypothesize that we are having an effect and it may not be good for everyone.

To be honest I have not looked at all the slides or the website fully. I read the book Snowball Earth 3 times though lol. Part of the idea that Hoffman was trying to push was that the Snowball Earth episodes were the trigger for the explosion of life post-Cambrian yet fossil records do not support this to date BUT one has to remember that fossils are MUCH harder to find in these older rocks primarily because there are less rocks avaialbe for easy study and because fossils are tiny and often contain no hard parts which makes fossil imprinting difficult to spot.

The implications to gloabal climate change could be so varied from region to region that IMO its all a mess. Part of the problem in trying to properly hypothesize the effects of global climate change is that the evidence of prior climatic changes of the past were effected greatly by landmass formations, ocean size and shape, sun angle, sun size and even rotational speed of the earth. Those are some pretty big variables

 

F8L, thank you, so maybe I'm not crazy and a very eloquent answer for someone with hot rod wheels on their Prius.

I'm just an average Joe Knucklehead, so when I see the poll at the start of this that almost 62% here think there is an apocolyptic problem that humans have created by contributing to global warming I got alarmed. I took 10 minutes to look up something simple which was record high temperatures thinking that they would all have been set within the last 5 years. But what I found is much different. All of the worldwide temperature records around the planet of the last 150 years (except for the north and south pole in the 1970s) are grouped together in a very narrow band of time way back over 75 years ago.

Specifically, if humans are significantly increasing global warming, why aren't all the temperature records being set now when :

...there are 600,000,000 cars on the planet in 2006 - 30 times more vs only about 20,000,000 cars in the 1930s plus people drove a lot less, there were no interstates back then.

...there are now 6.5 billion people on the planet in 2006 over 4 times more vs only 1.5 billion in 1930 - with the far less machinary and technology.

Those are BIG numbers and BIG differences. Why is that ? It says to my way of simple thinking that there are independent forces much, much greater than humans affecting climate change.

Averages can establish baselines for comparison to find outliers so that new things can be learned but you still have to explain the outliers to have a theory. As the old axiom says " The Exception Proves the Rule ". Here's an average though, the highest average global record was set in the 1930s. So was the third highest average global temperature.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Aug 16 2006, 09:01 AM) [snapback]304034[/snapback]</div>

No, I checked, it is still 118 degrees from August 5, 1961 according to NOAA's update* last week.

WASHINGTON STATE
Ice Harbor Dam 47.8 C (118.0 F) on the 5th August, 1961*

You're right about what Godiva quoted.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 17 2006, 05:21 PM) [snapback]304920[/snapback]</div>

You're really stuck on this, aren't you?

You actually don't have to explain the outliers to have a theory. Once again, we're talking about climate, not single points in time, or an average of a handful of outliers. GW amounts to a couple of degrees rise in the course of 100 years, in the midsts of a bunch of data that varies by 100 or more degrees over the globe at any given point in time.

There was a study done over the 3 days after 9/11 that showed that the daily temperature range increased over the U.S. for those days. This supports a theory that the contrails from planes help to cool the Earth during the day, and/or warm the Earth at night, even though the daily averages did not change. So, in the absense of planes, more like it was in the 30's, the diurnal variation was higher. So maybe it's all the planes we have going all the time that are buffering us from breaking those records these days. This is just one possibility; I can think of other possible explanations. Whatever the explanation, it really is just a sideline to the argument that we are undergoing a drastic climate change, which by definition is a study of means.

 

what gets me is all the conflicting information on temperatures. i see in the paper and several online publications things like

9 out of 10 of the hottest years on record have happened in the past 15 years, etc.

but all we seem to argue about is a single year last century and that is enough to discount global warming? is a single year or a single day that important??

is something that takes decades like the overwhelming visual evidence of shrinking glaciers and icepacks not worth considering because of a single day back in 1930 ???(or whatever)

what exactly is the point of this discussion?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 17 2006, 03:33 PM) [snapback]304923[/snapback]</div>

A Navy doctor friend of mine, Orthopedic Surgeon, now station in Iraq emailed and said it was 147 degree's. Didn't specify but I'm sure that was in the sun, no matter it's not like our guys are issued parasols to ward off the sun. MAN! That is freaking hot! [attachmentid=4526]

Wildkow

 

Yes I'm stuck on this topic now but so is FHOP. Just got back to Prius Chat after moving on to regular life stuff. Maybe I should become a weatherperson.

Again, the thing that stuck with me is that now 61% of the polled respondents here think that there is a global warming crisis and that humans (governments) can do something about it. There is no doubt that there are dramatic climate changes in progress both global warming and global cooling, but what I learned is that it has always been that way pre-humans and post humans. The facts are that inspite of a recent 400% increase in the number of humans (since the 1930s) and a 30,000% increase in gas burning vehicles, almost all temperature records in the US and Worldwide are from the 1880s to the 1930s and two of the hottest averages were also in the 1930s. If there were significant human effects then there should be new temperature records set every couple of years. I suppose that we humans are arrogant and believe we can effect anything on earth we want. That's cool, beliefs are OK.

Reading more, there are theories that earth's mantle is dynamic and moving under the crust significantly affecting surface and ocean temeratures. It is also believed that there have been human cultures that already disappeared due to rapid climate changes e.g. the Mayas (heat increase/drought).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 28 2006, 07:17 PM) [snapback]310909[/snapback]</div>

I have a problem with this line of thinking. It seems whenever I have a disagreement on an environmental issue this comment comes up. 90% of the time it is from someone who doesnt have full knowledge on ecosystems, climatology, geology or whatever the subject is. It is an easy cop out for those who dont want to assume responsibility for their actions. I'm not saying you fall into this category but it is indeed a dangerous line of thinking when those who spend their lives in research tell us we need to be careful.

Regardless of anyones beliefs on how anthropogenic factors contribute to global warming/climate change there are a host of other reasons to err on the side of caution and slow our rate of pollution, environmental degredation and squandering of natural resources. So ultimately we come out with the same net effect regardless what your belief is. Does that make any sense? I'm starving and cant think straight lol.

 

I have to add, I didnt vote in the poll as I don't like the choices

 

I had a poster in College. Many may remember it. A young lady in the fore ground legs and arms spread. In the back ground the mushroom cloud. The caption "bend over place you head firmly between you legs and kiss your nice person good by" We might want to get on this one before we have a need to do this?!

 

From XKCD.com

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 28 2006, 09:17 PM) [snapback]310909[/snapback]</div>

This is simply not true, and I already gave you a sound theory as to why we aren't seeing the wide temperature ranges and breaking highs we saw in the 30's and before.

For the Earth's global average temperature to rise by 2 degrees F in 100 years is astounding. It has set into motion a sequence of events that are likely to escalate the problem, whether or not we do anything about the original cause. I worry that Kyoto is not aggressive enough, and we will need to find creative ways to cool the planet. In "The Weather Makers", Flannery mentions an idea that if we were really smart about it, we could have used the burning of fossile fuels to offset the upcoming ice age. But we're squandering that potential resource too quickly and at the wrong time.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dragonfly @ Sep 30 2006, 07:04 AM) [snapback]325995[/snapback]</div>

Couldnt agree more... What even more people don't take into account is the reduction of resources at a time when our technology has no direct replacement and could lead to global economic collapse. Now tie in the effects if global warming continues to occur and you could truely have a disaster on your hands. Again, that is a "what if" but since this is the road we are currently walking its wise to look at the "what ifs" VERY closely and be ready to alter our path to avoid the end of the road. Well, many would argue we are at that crossroads already..