UN Claims Record-Breaking Extreme Weather

John Farley said:
I am always fascinated by the knee-jerk reactions on this list AGAINST the idea of global warming. A lot of you complain that doubters of global warming are ridiculed, but on this list the exact opposite seems to occur over and over again. Just because people draw stupid conclusions linking specific weather events to global warming does not mean that it is not real. In fact, there is no doubt it is real - just look at the temperature data over the last 100 years. The only real debates are over the extent to which it is caused by humans, and whether the trend will continue in the future. Regarding the former, there is strong anecdotal/correlational evidence (not proof, but data trends that are consistent with theories about the effects of greenhouse gasses on climate) that suggests a human contribution to global warming, along with a huge majority of people who have spent their careers studying climatology who think that human actions have contributed to it. Regarding the latter, most forecasts and models predict that it will continue, although some reasonable arguments can be made that the effects of the current trend might lead to a reversal. And finally, remember that even if reversals do occur in some local areas, as they probably will, it is the worldwide temperature trend that is the issue.
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Ditto. I agree -- I don't think many scientists will argue that global warming is not real. Indeed, the primary debate pertains to the degree to which anthroprogenic forcing has contributed to this warming. Regardless, it seems that the issue has become so politicized that it looks better if some folks deny that global warming is occurring without having any supporting data. Someone can get more attn now that public awareness of global warming has gotten to the point that it has if that person can claim that these "scientists" and "data" are full of garbage. This becomes a "look at all the sheep -- if only they knew what I know..." type of deal. I'm *not* (!) speaking of folks on this board -- most of us have read at least some of the scientific studies and data in regards to global warming, so we are forming are opinions on at least some data and analysis (kind of like religion -- I don't really care what you believe in, but I just think it's important that you form an educated opinion). Instead, I'm directing this towards "joe q public" who hasn't looked at a shred of evidence and trusts the "climatologist" who said on his 10 am Sunday talk show "Geez, humans are just too small to cause global climate change" (for some reason, the Am. Enterp. Inst. comes to mind). Yes, this runs both ways, too (i.e. some folks will run with what the media gives them -- however, there seem to be more data supporting an anthroprogenic effect than refuting such an effect). Sure, natural disasters (i.e. volcanic events) can quickly overshadow any effect that industrial human activity has had on the global climate, but that doesn't dispute the idea of anthroprogenic influences on the world climate.

FWIW, I too chuckle when I hear or read reports about people who attribute any particular storm to global warming. Of course, we know that the time and spatial scales involved are many orders of magnitude apart, so a simple scale analysis would tell us that global climate change likely has extremely limited effect on any particular "storm" (synoptic, mesoscale, or smaller). If only we could tell all media that it's best to look at global climate change in terms of mean, global patterns, not a 2-week heat wave in parts of the US! Like the stock market, we've had many ups and downs in global mean temperatures, and I will guarantee that will continue to smaller-scale warming and cooling periods. However, personally, I'm reasonably confident in saying that, in the mean, we'll see continued global warming in the years to come, and I think human activity is partly to blame. Of course, the climate system is extraordinarily complex and non-linear, so there may be a time at which effects of a warming world actually lead to a reverse of trend and start large-scale cooling.

Of course, this could all be a conspiracy by smaller governments and tree-huggers. Oh yeah, we can't forget professors and researchers skewing their results in hopes of getting more grant money / funding... :rolleyes: As an aspiring researcher myself, it's disconcerting to think that some people think that all researchers (particularly gov't researchers) are so scientifically corrupt that they would seriously skew their analysis in order to further a political agenda. Yes, I'm sure some people do this -- I'm not saying that all publications are 100% accurate and scientifically-thorough. However, it's worrying that some people lump all folks in the research and academic fields in that boat. This is not to say that we should accept status quo and not challenge popular ideas and notions. To the contrary, science is what it is because someone challenged other ideas.
 
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I think the reason a lot of people on here are quick to criticize articles on global warming, like the one I posted a link to, is because (as Jeff mentioned) it is ridiculous IMO to matter of factly say that any particular weather event, storm, or season was a result of gobal warming. The vast majority of the people on here are far more educated about how the atmoshpere works than the general public so I think we are quick to laugh at claims that attribute single weather events to man-made CO2 emissions.
I personally am just fed up with all the sensationalist claims about how we are destroying the Earth and everything on it. I can't even watch a show on National Georgraphic anymore without some poke being made at how we are killing one animal or another. I swear every time they talk about an animal population in decline it is immediately followed by "scientists believe that global warming is to blame". I don't care who you are, you can't tell me that animals can deal with the multiple degree temperature swings you have at any given location from year to year, but the 1/2 degree average rise over the last 100 years was devestating. I mean, come on. Let's call a spade a spade. In addition to that, it has been proven that animal populations flourish as temperature increases, but you would never hear that from Al Gore. Instead I get to watch a cartoon of a polar bear balancing on an ice cube before drowning.
IMO there are several fundamental facts and the rest is just speculation. Yes the earth has gotten slightly warmer in the last 100 years (it did cool down steadily from 1940-1980), but the earth's climate has flucuated routinely throughout the past. This current warming trend is NOT extraordinary. Besides, it's the end of an ice age, it is supposed to be getting warmer. That's what happens. I do believe that to some degree we may be contributing to the current warming, but there is absolutely no way to say we are responsible for it. The atmosphere, the sun, the magnetic fields, and evertying else that influences the earth's climate is beyond comprehension for any human or computer model. There is a cascading trend of cause and effect in the atmosphere and you simply can not take all of them into account accurately. All these things that influence climate are interelated and beyond complex. That is why I get annoyed when the big global warming advocates act with such certainty and audascity. Tell it like it is. We aren't sure. They don't know that we are responsible. They don't know that this trend is going to continue (extrapolation can get you into a lot of trouble). And they certainly don't know that this current warming trend is going to be devestating. Yet, you would never know that by listening to Al Gore or the UN.
I am all for cleaning up the environment. I just don't like the lies and fear mongering that are being used to achieve it.
 
Here we go again...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/07/disasters
Now earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and volcanoes are covered under global warming also. Hell, we might as well throw in school shootings and car accidents.
It isn't a prediction when you are calling for every possible outcome. If there is below average drought, floods, heat, cold, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and volcanic eruptions next year do you think these same people are going to back off and say they were wrong? I doubt it. I haven't forgotten about how every single night some jackass was on the news in 2005 telling us about how global warming was the reason we were having so many hurricanes and it was going to get nothing but worse. Then 2006 happened and Gore came back out and said that global warming influences the strength of hurricanes, but not the number of them and that was his explanation for the lack of hurricanes in 2006. I appreciated the clarification because I missed that part of the theory in 2005.
 
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Thanks, Michael. You just saved me a lot of typing.

On edit, it's entertaining to read some of the Brit papers. Some of those folks are in serious need of Prozac. The Guardian can't have too many regular readers, as anyone reading it daily would be well motivated to "off" themselves since there's no hope anyway.
 
John Farley said:
In fact, there is no doubt it is real - just look at the temperature data over the last 100 years. The only real debates are over the extent to which it is caused by humans, and whether the trend will continue in the future.
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Actually, there are valid reasons for "doubt." Just take a fair-minded look at http://climateaudit.org/ and www.surfacestations.org . The "official" climate change observing network is a scientific scandal.

Then, we learn that a number of the IPCC's model runs indicated cooling and they were thrown out as "outliers." Judy Curry and Kevin Trenberth (two strong AGW advocates) have backed off earlier statements and now say IPCC "does not make forecasts."

The scientific evidence indicates to me that the earth is warmer than it was 50 years ago (during a period of cooling) but we cannot say precisely how much. Human activities may have had a small role in that warming but we don't know how much.

Finally, I have zero faith that the IPCC can make accurate forecasts for specific months in the year 2100. We can't even make consistently accurate forecasts or one or two seasons ahead. It is ludicrous to think we can make 93 year forecasts and, I believe, it is scientifically dubious publish them.
 
John Farley said:
I am always fascinated by the knee-jerk reactions on this list AGAINST the idea of global warming. A lot of you complain that doubters of global warming are ridiculed, but on this list the exact opposite seems to occur over and over again. Just because people draw stupid conclusions linking specific weather events to global warming does not mean that it is not real.
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People that don’t believe that humans play a significant role in global warming most likely hold those beliefs because of the many ridiculous and conflicting conclusions that Climatologists have about Global Warming. It seems like many well respected Climatologist take their valid research findings and try to apply them to things that they are not experts in, such as tornadoes and hurricanes. I personally have no idea what role humans play in global warming and don't know what global temperatures will be in 20, 40, or 200 years. The entire Global Warming debate is pointless anyways. Even if we can’t agree on how it affects our climate, we all know that pollution is bad for the environment and bad for us.

Why not spend our time and energy looking for cost effective was to reduce pollution? Here is one, build steel-reinforced concrete homes. They cost 10-15% more than the stick build trash we build today but you make up for that in lower utilities (less pollution!) and lower insurance rates. Not to mention that it will be tornado proof, fire resistant, and will last hundreds of years.
 
Atmospheric phenomenae causing tectonic activity? Please! I don't know what those guys are drinking, but if I ever need to be in an altered state, I hope they bottle the stuff! I hope they mean to say that volcanoes influence climate change, that's absolutely right. But, if they're saying climate change causes volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis, I have one word for them, Hogwash! And, for the publication that published that nonsense three words...bird cage liner.
 
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I think its interesting that the UN and AG are both in this together, dont you? Of course i knew this from its early beginnings, I just wanted to draw the parallel for others who may not. Its called Agenda
 
So the fact that this issue has become politicized and popular in the eyes of much of the public means that the science behind it has changed? I'm speaking of global climate change on the whole, not anything in particular. Suddently, any supporting scientist is corrupt and part of the "agenda"? Yes, there's some sloppy and questionable links being made, but that shouldn't be used to refute the more rigorous and stead-fast links.
 
Jeff, the problem is, the political and social aspects are totally overshadowing the science in some media reporting. The problem isn't with the science, it's that the media and some politicians constantly misinterpret the science to the public. They don't tell the complete story, they only tell bits and pieces. If the media, and the public would simply employ a bit of critical thinking, (and properly scrutinize what they report and hear reported as science, instead of simply taking it all as scientific fact), there wouldn't be the credibility problem.
 
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Please wait a minute. It is scientists contending that global warming will cause more volcanic eruptions and more earthquakes. It is a scientist contending that walking or doing exercises is worse for the planet than driving. You can't blame the media for reporting what the scientists claim.

Meanwhile, on the science front, the case for global warming continues to weaken. If you read the IPCC's 2007 "summary for policymakers" they say their case is based on observations and models.

Observations

The U.S. Historical Climatology Network has been shown to be a scandal (www.surfacestations.org), major errors have been shown in the calculation of surface temperatures ( www.climateaudit.org/?p=1880#comments , www.climateaudit.org/?p=1878#comments , et. al.) . Even though the temperatures have been shown the have a warm bias, they are running below the coldest IPCC predictions. Ocean temperatures are not warming as forecast.

Models

Some of the strongest advocates of the IPCC's case, Kevin Trenberth and Judy Curry have backed off the IPCC's forecasts in the last two months (c.f., http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/06/predictions_of_climate.html ). If the IPCC makes "no predictions at all" and "None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models." then what are we left with?

Even sea level rise has been called into question in the last two months by one of the world's experts in the field.

Perhaps this is, in part, why we are getting now is these silly claims about exercise and volcanoes since the "mainstream" science seems to be weakening.
 
I am a meteorologist, not a climatologist, and I don't claim to be an expert on climate change, unlike most of the people I've ever heard speak on the subject.

I will contribute merely by pointing folks to this even-handed official statement from the American Meteorological Society.

I will ask but one question to those who have appointed themselves climatological experts. Even IF you're correct, and climate change is either not impacted or only negligibly impacted by human activity, where is the harm in polluting less?
 
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