Global Warming?

[IMFREAKZILLA]

I live in Virginia and for the past several years our climate has been getting warmer.
Point in case today is calling for a high of 61 and Halloween day with a few showers
possible a temp of 69,Now we don't exactly live in the South but this weather is
crazy ,The last five years our winters have been moderate we went Five years with
only a dusting and I remember when we used to get bombarded with snow, not like
some states get but for us it was lots,I am wondering if this Global Warming thing
has anything to do with the weather,I've read where it does.Just wondering...........

[Steel_UK]

Climate Change is the new politically correct term for it, because temperatures have actually been dropping in regions so couldn't be called Warming any more.

There is an element of truth to it all, that the climate is changing. However, the world's climate has always been changing. I cannot remember the technical term for the cycle, but in simple terms the Earth operates on a basis like this:
Heats Up -> Cools Down -> Heats Up -> Cools Down -> Heats Up -> Cools Down.

The big ice age a long time ago was from a long period of cooling. If I remember right we are around the peak of heating up. As with anything one must also remember that there will be big variations and exceptions within a cycle.

What I do not like is the scaremongering by the media over here (I do not know what it is like in the USA). They bang on about the weather being the hottest/coldest/wettest/driest on record, but normally fail to mention that the records only go back 30-50 years in many cases! Further to this, a lot of photographs from the 1950s and 1960s show many regions of the UK either flooded or in big snow drifts. We have had little of this weather for the past 20-30 years until recently. This is where problems start, people build on flood plains and people are no longer prepared for real winters rather than just a slightly chilly spell.

To give an example, the odd house in my area has snow doors from the 50s and 60s on them, they're like storm doors, big wooden things that just cover up the house door. Most of them have long since gone. The majority of people are unable to drive in snow conditions. A lot have little or no memory of these weather conditions but I bet their parents or grand parents will. But because they have no memory or knowledge of the weather before their time, they get all panic like and think it is the end of the world...

EDIT: Some other thoughts came to mind. It has recently been found that the output from the Sun has increased recently too, further altering the conditions on the planet. I believe they confirmed this by noting variations in conditions on other planets in the solar system along with ours.

[lizzyb]

Yeah...our weather is wonky up here too! Like Steel UK said....warming, climate change.....it's all the same and it is a natural process....perhaps speeded/sped up by mankind and the industrialized world......but I believe that the outcome in the end would be the same irregardless.

[n10city]

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.

[IMFREAKZILLA]

I have a question n10city as the earth rotates it puzzles me that all places would
would be getting warmer or is when we rotate some parts of earth are actually
further away from the sun?

[linemanpaul]

Excuse me, I have to go and yell at farm animals about uncontrolled flatulences, I think it is a conspiracy!!, the livestock it plotting the demise of mankind, I hear the chant"long live the swine and the bovine". How do you think swine flu got started????

[Steel_UK]

Very good post there n10city! Furthering on your comment about some scientists just wanting to be famous and others constructing data how they wish, it is the new political spin to say we are destroying things. It gives an excuse to increase taxation once more, and the UK government is bent on taxing anything that produces Co2.

What I think is really happening in the political system is that governments are hiding problems under the guise of emissions. I may have mentioned this once before on here. The national electricity grid in the UK was stated to be unable to support the rate of growth for another five to ten years, and this was back in around 2001. It is my guess that the British government is using the Co2 scaremongering tactics to try and get people to reduce their demands on the grid and services, not because of emissions but because of poor planning by government bodies to upgrade said services. Of course they could never say they had failed to upgrade services to meet future demands, always looking for short term goals, so they blame something like emissions that they then say is all the public's fault (and tax some more).

[tidalwave]

If climate change (up or down) is caused by human activity, we'll probably get an idea soon as China's 1 billion+ population acquires an emerging middle class, complete with 2 cars per family and increased electricity consumption.

I'm not convinced either way about the human influence on the planet's climate. One thing I am certain of, however, is that either side is populated by a great number of folks whose agendas do not involve saving Mother Earth. As Steel_UK said, the big gov't types see it as a cash cow; a means to get more of the private sector's pie. Others are opposed to anything that could potentially limit economic growth.

IMO, all this stuff about producing more energy by cleaner means is just delaying the conclusion: we need less people on this planet. The human race has become too successful and our consumption of natural resources for energy and agriculture is reaching a tipping point of unsustainablity. It may be manageable now, but wait until we reach 9 billion people in 30 years. That's the world our kids will be in. All of the proposed improvements in technology are great, but unless it keeps pace with the rate of consumption, it's delaying the inevitable.

[n10city]

Originally Posted by IMFREAKZILLA

I have a question n10city as the earth rotates it puzzles me that all places would
would be getting warmer or is when we rotate some parts of earth are actually
further away from the sun?

The amount or 'intensity' of the solar radiation entering the earth's atmosphere is called radience (watts per steradian per square meter) is quite uniform for the most part. We have fluctuations due to sun spots, but being further away from the sun wont do much. North America has it's summer when the planet is in aphelion (furthest point from the sun). But the bulk of the radiation is deflected by the Earth's magnetic field. Now if the magnetic field were to switch polarities, we'd be in some serious shit.

It is important to remember that this planet has never had a life form that has been so dominant as a species. So to say that earth's inhabitants cause climate change is wrong. We may slightly alter it, but natural forcings are predominantly at work here. The high CO2 parts per million in our atmosphere have been seen before, but they've been from volcanic activity, so we may just be enhancing natural forcings when they occur.

Methane from cows = real, but dumb. What we suppose to do? Stop eating beef, haha.