Extreme Fitness - View Single Post

n10city · October 30th, 2009, 06:01 PM

As someone with a BS in Atmospheric Sciences I know quite a bit about the topic.

When we talk about 'climate change', it can mean many things, especially with the number of media sources today. Steel is correct in saying that the temperature is ALWAYS CHANGING, but you have to realize the time scales on which such a change occur. You simply CANNOT deduce that since today is much warmer/colder than it should be, or warmer/colder than it was last year, or "or gee whiz this a heck a lot of rain", that you are experiencing the climate changing. For the most part, you can live 10s of lifetimes without experiencing enough proof to account for any type of large-scale climactic shift.

Air is a terrible thing to base long term measurements on. It moves around too much, and well, it's invisible. Now water hits the sweet spot. How about water that doesn't move! And what gets trapped inside ice? Prehistoric Air. Here is a good example of the timescales I'm talking about. Hundreds of thousands of years.

Further note: Some meteorologists/scientists just want to be famous too. In all reality, you can construe data any way you want it to. Global Warming, Global Cooling, the copious amount of data needed is such that the human race will never really know until we're dead in the ground anyway. After all, it's only been since the last few centuries that we've been pumping CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. That's not enough time to find out what we're doing to the planet. Ice core's help, that gives us bearings. But that is no indication of where our planet is headed. We can put these figures into computer climate models, and we have. But we basically end up with the 'hockey stick' shape every time.

Get the feeling we're polishing the brass on the Titanic? Me too.

Now there are shorter term Climate patterns that are more concern to us humans, these can 'oscillate' between warm and cool patterns, much like ENSO. These mostly depend on underground volcanic activity, variability in deep ocean currents, salinity gradients/thermohaline, and corresponding long and short wave patterns. <----- Let's just say a ton of shit is interacting here.

I hope I've helped. I would write a book, but I have things to do tonight.

I can answer any questions too about the subject.

October 30th, 2009, 06:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
n10city Member offline Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: CT Posts: 96 Thanks given: 43 104 thanks in 57 posts Rep Power: 2	As someone with a BS in Atmospheric Sciences I know quite a bit about the topic. When we talk about 'climate change', it can mean many things, especially with the number of media sources today. Steel is correct in saying that the temperature is ALWAYS CHANGING, but you have to realize the time scales on which such a change occur. You simply CANNOT deduce that since today is much warmer/colder than it should be, or warmer/colder than it was last year, or "or gee whiz this a heck a lot of rain", that you are experiencing the climate changing. For the most part, you can live 10s of lifetimes without experiencing enough proof to account for any type of large-scale climactic shift. Air is a terrible thing to base long term measurements on. It moves around too much, and well, it's invisible. Now water hits the sweet spot. How about water that doesn't move! And what gets trapped inside ice? Prehistoric Air. Here is a good example of the timescales I'm talking about. Hundreds of thousands of years. Further note: Some meteorologists/scientists just want to be famous too. In all reality, you can construe data any way you want it to. Global Warming, Global Cooling, the copious amount of data needed is such that the human race will never really know until we're dead in the ground anyway. After all, it's only been since the last few centuries that we've been pumping CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. That's not enough time to find out what we're doing to the planet. Ice core's help, that gives us bearings. But that is no indication of where our planet is headed. We can put these figures into computer climate models, and we have. But we basically end up with the 'hockey stick' shape every time. Get the feeling we're polishing the brass on the Titanic? Me too. Now there are shorter term Climate patterns that are more concern to us humans, these can 'oscillate' between warm and cool patterns, much like ENSO. These mostly depend on underground volcanic activity, variability in deep ocean currents, salinity gradients/thermohaline, and corresponding long and short wave patterns. <----- Let's just say a ton of shit is interacting here. I hope I've helped. I would write a book, but I have things to do tonight. I can answer any questions too about the subject.