The NY Times reports that The Ozone Hole Is Mending. Now for the ‘But.’

Do we understand everything about the weather? No. It seems now that the ozone hole in Antarctica led to the creation of reflective clouds that protected the continent from some of the effects of warming. It may be that the success in healing the ozone hole and the recent signs of more rapid Antarctic melting could be related.

The NY Times reports that the Climate Fight Is Heating Up in Deep Freeze

The times is covering the propaganda fight more than any science. The Skeptics are saying the DC snowstorms make the notion of warming absurd. The Warmers are saying this is just the sort of extreme weather event which becomes statistically more likely given warmer air carrying more moisture.

What we are definitely seeing is a dramatic cold surge in the Arctic Oscillation.

This is the same index reflecting the air pressure over the arctic that caused the dramatic heat surge in Siberia in the early 90s, that convinced Justin there was a decades long cooling trend. This time, it is a cool snap rather than a warm snap.

If AO fluctuations were part of a definite trend, I would think it would show on the above chart. Indeed, there were concerns in the late 1990s that the AO had shifted in a dramatic and permanent way. That warm burst was historic.

But now we have a really impressive blip going the other way. I'm not sure any trend in the AO is real.

From today's Washington Post.

When you're trying to launch snowboarding tricks on dry ground and simultaneously shutting down the U.S. government because the snowbanks are casting shadows on the Washington Monument, something odd is going on. This isn't a good old-fashioned winter for the District of Columbia, not unless you're remembering the last ice age. And it doesn't disprove global warming, despite Sen. Jim De Mint's cheerful tweet: "It's going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries 'uncle.' "

Instead, the weird and disruptive weather patterns around the world are pretty much exactly what you'd expect as the planet warms. Here's how it works:

In most places, winter is clearly growing shorter and less intense. We can tell, because Arctic sea ice is melting, because the glaciers on Greenland are shrinking and because a thousand other signals send the same message. Here in the mountains of the Northeast, for instance, lakes freeze later than they used to, and sometimes not at all: Lake Champlain remained open in winter only three times during the 19th century, but it did so 18 times between 1970 and 2007.

But rising temperature is only one effect of climate change. Probably more crucially, warmer air holds more water vapor than cold air does. The increased evaporation from land and sea leads to more drought but also to more precipitation, since what goes up eventually comes down. The numbers aren't trivial -- global warming has added 4 percent more moisture to the atmosphere since 1970. That means that the number of "extreme events" such as downpours and floods has grown steadily; the most intense storms have increased by 20 percent across the United States in the past century.

So here's the thing: Despite global warming, it still gets cold enough to snow in the middle of winter. It even gets cold enough to snow in Texas and Georgia, as it did late last week. And the chances of what are technically called "big honking dumps" have increased. As Jeff Masters, the widely read weather blogger, pointed out last week, a record snowstorm requires a record amount of moisture in the air. "It is quite possible that the dice have been loaded in favor of more intense Nor'easters for the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, thanks to the higher levels of moisture present in the air due to warmer global temperatures," he wrote.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

From today's Washington Post.

[I]

Thanks for the find. As one who is currently looking out (for the second time in two weeks) at two inches of rare South Carolina snow, I've suspected that climate change would provide a logical reason for this rarity becoming less rare. I've lived here for 11 years now. We've had a measurable amount of snowfall four times in those 11 years. Once in 2001, once last winter-and now twice this winter.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

From today's Washington Post.

[I]

Or to put it even more simply, "when your system's going into oscillation, then it's on the brink of failing."

Another view: do places get lots of snow because they are extremely cold or because they are in the ideal places for huge snowstorms? The South Pole, a very cold place get very little snow; it is simply so cold that it can't lose such snow as it gets or has gotten. The coldest true desert of absolute drought (evaporation exceeding precipitation) is to be found in Antarctica, in the Dry Valleys, places as parched as Death Valle... freeze-dried and wind-blown instead of sun-baked. One such valley actually has a frozen salt lake in its middle. But contrast Buffalo, New York, infamous for winter blizzards. Any time between late November and late November and early April. Buffalo can get a gigantic lake-effect snowstorm. Open water in 2/3 of all compass directions (Lakes Erie and Ontario) ensure that any frontal storm can drench Buffalo.

The mid-latitude sun rises high enough from late February to early April that it can melt the heavy snows between snow squalls, so the last March or April snowstorm leaves little evidence for long. Buffalo gets real summers as well as winters.

....I would not be surprised if the same places that have been hit by freakish snowstorms are again unusually warm again between May and October -- and just as humid as ever.

Is there a single thing that could disprove AGW? It's hot: global warming. It's cold: global warming. It's hurricanes of toads: global warming. It's weeks of drought: global warming. I suppose global warming also retroactively caused the Dust Bowl of the 30s.

There is a saying in these parts: 'Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes.' I put more trust into folk sayings encouraging patience than in the endless doom and gloom forecasts that never seem to pan out.

Originally Posted by threegee

Is there a single thing that could disprove AGW?

There are several things, any one of which could do it. Showing that the earth isn't warming through comprehensive temperature measurements. Or, showing that a sufficient negative feedback loop exists to absorb and neutralize the effects of greenhouse gases, and that isn't wiped out by any positive feedback loop. That would disprove the A part of AGW, although the GW part would remain true.

There is a saying in these parts: 'Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes.'

Weather and climate are not the same thing.

I totally agree Threegee. No matter what the weather, the climate nazis will attribute it to AGW. Its great to see the massive climate fraud is being exposed though. I wonder when the Americna media will start reporting all of it though....

Originally Posted by Weave

I totally agree Threegee.

What a surprise.

No matter what the weather, the climate nazis will attribute it to AGW.

Weather and climate are not the same thing. I suggest you learn some more about this subject so as to avoid embarrassing yourself any further.

Edit: It's important to read the details and not just the headlines. This subject is not simple and can't be reduced to a sound bite or a bumper sticker. For example, in this article, which purports to express scientific skepticism of AGW:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7026317.ece

We find the following:

Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the chapter of the IPCC report that deals with the observed temperature changes, said he accepted there were problems with the global thermometer record but these had been accounted for in the final report.

“It’s not just temperature rises that tell us the world is warming,” he said. “We also have physical changes like the fact that sea levels have risen around five inches since 1972, the Arctic icecap has declined by 40% and snow cover in the northern hemisphere has declined.”

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has recently issued a new set of global temperature readings covering the past 30 years, with thermometer readings augmented by satellite data.
Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said: “This new set of data confirms the trend towards rising global temperatures and suggest that, if anything, the world is warming even more quickly than we had thought.”

Critiques about flaws in methodology involving temperature measurement are valid and require being addressed, and such flaws should be corrected. However, the claim that this invalidates the entire body of evidence for AGW is FAR overblown. No such thing is the case. Because of these physical changes referenced in the above quote, the GW part of AGW is the strongest part: there is very little doubt of it, the world IS warming. The A part -- that we are causing it -- is not quite as strong, but in fact it's pretty strong, too.

It rests on four assertions:

1) the earth is warming;
2) humans have increased the partial pressure of greenhouse gases dramatically;
3) increasing the partial pressure of greenhouse gases dramatically will, absent sufficient net negative feedback loops to offset the process, raise global temperatures; and
4) there are insufficient net negative feedback loops to offset the process.

Therefore, humans are at least in large measure responsible for the increase in global temperatures.

Of those 4 points, only the 4th is even slightly uncertain. At that, the uncertainly lies only in that not all possible negative feedback loops (or positive ones) have been identified and accounted for.

Just to be clear: a "negative feedback loop" is something that, because of warming caused by greenhouse gases, acts to reduce the warming and/or absorb the greenhouse gases. For example, warmer weather might encourage more plant growth, which would absorb more CO2. This is a negative feedback loop.

But "positive feedback loops" are also possible. Two examples would be the release of methane from arctic permafrost as it thaws and the increase in water vapor in a warmer atmosphere. Since both methane and water vapor are greenhouse gases, both of these results of a warmer planet would accelerate the warming.

The difficulty here, and the chief reason why computer models produced to date have failed to predict results with perfect accuracy, is that feedback loops in both directions aren't understood with perfect certainty. So it's (just barely) possible that enough of a negative feedback loop will develop to overwhelm all the positive feedback loops and damp down the warming effect. But although this is, based on lack of perfect knowledge, theoretically possible, it's hardly the way to bet.

About the core AGW mechanism there is no doubt whatsoever. It's basic physics. And there is also no doubt that the earth is warming. Some uncertainty remains, but it's marginal. This kind of thing is what people learn when they look into the matter even a little bit past the sound bites and the bumper stickers.

Brian clearly you do not understand sarcasm. Yes I know the difference of climate and weather. The point I was making is that whenever there is a weather event, hot, cold wet, dry it is always attributed to climate change. Katrina is an example. After it happened Al Gore, Robert Kennedy JR went rushing out claiming this was all the result of climate change. So now with record snow and cold in places like Texas, this is all attributed once again to climate change. No matter what, it all because of climate change...the science is settled....right???

Clearly the science is not settled. I seriously question the whole idea that its been warming at all given the question of reliability of the weather stations and thier locations, the missing data, the admission by some leading scientists that the science isnt settled at all. (Phil Jones), the admission that the MWP is a possibility, something that other people like historians already know. The science has been bent and distorted to fit the preconcieved notion of "climate change". And anyone who disagrees is a "denier" Nothing more than a blatant attempt to intimidate scientists from seeking the truth.

The bottom line. Libs are trying to impose huge, fantastically huge costs to ours and the rest of the world economies on a maybe. The scaremongering that has gone on has been ridiculous. There are already plenty of times in history with global warming and cooling that cannot be attributed to AGW.

In the end it doesnt matter. The eco Nazis will use any scenario to justify this false myth. Thankfully they are being exposed. Cap and trade is dead, Copenhagen summit was an utter failure. Thankfully people are waking up!

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Weather and climate are not the same thing. I suggest you learn some more about this subject so as to avoid embarrassing yourself any further.

Be serious. Even a dittohead can repeat what he hears on the news.

To be clear, if the cornucopians were winning the debate, I would mock them, too. There is no chewy, hydrocarbon-sweetened nouget at the center of our candybar called Earth, and any possible abiotic hydrocarbons cannot possibly replenish fast enough to meet the exponential demand curve.

The problem a growing number of people have with the AGW debate is that we have been treated like children. A small group of highly-politicized men have told us the science is settled, trust us, instead of proving their claims through the methodical application of science. It isn't even hard to find highly-qualified scientists saying the science is not settled.

The politicians should just tell us we are going to build a green economy, already. Is there even any serious opposition outside the now bankrupt transportation industry? Besides the Republicans, I mean, who would oppose burying their own grandmothers if Democrats were for it.

Originally Posted by Weave

Brian clearly you do not understand sarcasm. Yes I know the difference of climate and weather. The point I was making is that whenever there is a weather event, hot, cold wet, dry it is always attributed to climate change. Katrina is an example. After it happened Al Gore, Robert Kennedy JR went rushing out claiming this was all the result of climate change. So now with record snow and cold in places like Texas, this is all attributed once again to climate change. No matter what, it all because of climate change...the science is settled....right???

Rely less on the pronouncements of politicians, whose job is raising issues from the back pages of the news into front line issues, and worry a lot more about the projections of scientists. There is a range of potential effects from the undeniable warming, but it's never wise to assume the best case is the true case.

Originally Posted by Weave

... Clearly the science is not settled. I seriously question the whole idea that its been warming at all given the question of reliability of the weather stations and their locations, the missing data, the admission by some leading scientists that the science isn't settled at all. (Phil Jones), the admission that the MWP is a possibility, something that other people like historians already know. The science has been bent and distorted to fit the preconceived notion of "climate change". And anyone who disagrees is a "denier" Nothing more than a blatant attempt to intimidate scientists from seeking the truth.

You harp on the MWP, which is being studied, and some questionable readings at a few weather stations, but you ignore the obvious. The sea level is rising. There is no question about that. The Arctic ice cap is melting. Again, this is undeniable. Explain those using some other causative factor(s).

Originally Posted by Weave

... The bottom line. Libs are trying to impose huge, fantastically huge costs to ours and the rest of the world economies on a maybe. The scaremongering that has gone on has been ridiculous. There are already plenty of times in history with global warming and cooling that cannot be attributed to AGW.

The huge costs that are suggested are to do things that need to be done in any case. We need non-fossil energy sources that have long term viability. That's true even if AGW is a myth.

For four decades, we've been irresponsible stewards of our nation and the planet. We don't even repair bridges in known states of deterioration. Why? Because someone might have to pay taxes. Yet this is the argument you folks make over and over. Things are broken. Other things are disappearing. What are your plans to address those?

Originally Posted by Weave

... In the end it doesn't matter. The eco Nazis will use any scenario to justify this false myth. Thankfully they are being exposed. Cap and trade is dead, Copenhagen summit was an utter failure. Thankfully people are waking up!

Yes, let's continue being grasshoppers until the Chinese ants own us completely. Good plan.

Originally Posted by threegee

The problem a growing number of people have with the AGW debate is that we have been treated like children. A small group of highly-politicized men have told us the science is settled, trust us, instead of proving their claims through the methodical application of science. It isn't even hard to find highly-qualified scientists saying the science is not settled.

As I've been trying to get across here, "the science is settled" is too broad a phrase even to have much meaning. Part of the science IS settled -- and it's the important part for political decision-making. Other parts are not.

The earth is warming. We know this. There is absolutely no doubt about it. On that point, the science is settled. Burning of fossil fuels and deforestation contribute to global warming. We know this, too. The science is settled on that as well.

There may -- i.e., there is a nonzero chance -- be some unaccounted-for negative feedback loop that prevents the effect of fossil-fuel burning and deforestation from occurring as theory would predict. It's vanishingly unlikely, but at this point we can't totally rule it out. On this, the science isn't settled, but it's damned close.

Because the whole complex of feedback loops, positive and negative, and other influences on climate besides those man-made causes, are not perfectly understood, it's difficult to predict exactly how much temperatures will rise under any given set of behavioral conditions. The recently-developed problems with measuring global temperature are a footnote to this. On this point, the science is certainly NOT settled.

However, for purposes of political and economic action, that doesn't matter. All the science we need to be settled in order to know what we should do is settled. The earth is warming, burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are almost certainly the major causes, and so what we need to do is stop burning fossil fuels and losing net forests.

As noted, we need to transition away from oil and natural gas for other reasons not related to global warming anyway, so the only true impact of global warming on our decisions would be to rule out coal as a replacement. Instead, we need to focus on improved efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power (in that order, IMO). No, the science isn't completely settled, but enough of it is settled to tell us that that's what we need to do. The minutiae of how-much-under-what-conditions would be good to know and scientists should keep working on it. But it's not something we have to know at this time, in order to light our path forward.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As noted, we need to transition away from oil and natural gas for other reasons not related to global warming anyway, so the only true impact of global warming on our decisions would be to rule out coal as a replacement. Instead, we need to focus on improved efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear power (in that order, IMO). No, the science isn't completely settled, but enough of it is settled to tell us that that's what we need to do. The minutiae of how-much-under-what-conditions would be good to know and scientists should keep working on it. But it's not something we have to know at this time, in order to light our path forward.

That is simply untrue. Unproductive economic activity such as burying CO2 and carbon trading impose costs with tenuous benefits. You list actions that we in common agree would be productive activities, but they are responses to declining fossil fuel reserves, not direct responses to rising CO2 levels. The two issues are are not the same. Anyway, I doubt you can add any novel arguments, so I am done with the debate. This is a free country, and you are free to vote in any manner you please.

Originally Posted by threegee

You list actions that we in common agree would be productive activities, but they are responses to declining fossil fuel reserves, not direct responses to rising CO2 levels.

The point is that they are the same actions no matter what motivates them. Of the two you describe as "unproductive," one would be a way of incentivizing the "productive" actions you say we agree on, and the other is unrelated, a cure for global warming rather than a prevention.

I doubt I'll bring up anything new, either. It's all out there already.

What we need to do is start conserving energy -- not by depriving people, but by investing in efficiency. This we need to do because it saves money. And creates jobs.

What we need to do is find ways to greatly reduce our need for oil. This because it's an issue of national security. Unless you like being in the pockets of, say, Saudi Arabia.

All this regardless of whether or not Global Warming exists, is caused by human beings, or is some sort of conspiracy to turn us all into starving serfs. It's just the good common sense of a country housewife to do the above.

RealClimate reports a new iPhone app that lists climate dissident arguments and provides the counter arguments. The dissidents are reportedly working a counter app.

Dueling iPhones next?

Originally Posted by Weave

The point I was making is that whenever there is a weather event, hot, cold wet, dry it is always attributed to climate change. Katrina is an example. After it happened Al Gore, Robert Kennedy JR went rushing out claiming this was all the result of climate change. So now with record snow and cold in places like Texas, this is all attributed once again to climate change. No matter what, it all because of climate change...the science is settled....right???

Try this one: it will show mostly what global cooling would look like.

This is Africa and Arabia today:



and during the last glacial maximum:



Africa was little glaciated, but as a rule it was cooler and much drier. Sahara-like and Namib-like extreme deserts were far larger, and the semi-desert areas like the Kalahari (the Mojave and the Australian Outback are considered "semi-desert" in ORNL) themselves expanded where the extreme deserts did not expand. Global cooling (see the maps for Europe and North America during the Last Glacial Maximum) is much more dangerous, to be sure.

Check the section for Europe during the Ice Age for something that will give cause to weep. Stockholm was under ice; Berlin and London were fringes of the ice sheet; Paris was polar desert much like the High Arctic today; the Vienna Woods were long to come into existence but semi-desert grassland was the norm there, as throughout most of the European side of the Mediterranean.

Human populations were very small during the glacial maximum, but modern Man was present. There probably wasn't enough biological productivity to support the current population of dogs, let alone us, let alone the sophisticated civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.

Nobody has a convincing prediction on what a warmer world would be like. The most recent time of warming greater than what we now know is in the Eemian interglacial, when forests reached as far north as North Cape in Norway and parts of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Mediterranean vegetation reached southwestern France. The forest-grassland boundary in Texas that now lies just east of Dallas then went through Lubbock, about three hundred miles farther west. But that was with things just slightly warmer.

Some areas would be wetter, and some drier. Most places would be warmer and more humid. But would places like Spain, Italy, and Greece lose their winter rains and become hell-holes like the Persian Gulf region today? Maybe. We did see a heat wave afflict Europe a few years ago. That was weather; if it becomes the norm it is climate.

We could see ecological changes. Alligators that now are confined to the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic south of about Savannah could migrate northward and knock dogs off the top of the food chain in the Ohio and Potomac Valleys. Add the Burmese Python that people have stupidly imported into Florida -- and the southeastern quadrant of the US could become a more dangerous place. (The only potential man-eater that you can safely have around you is the dog, and only because of its good behavior).

Clearly the science is not settled. I seriously question the whole idea that its been warming at all given the question of reliability of the weather stations and thier locations, the missing data, the admission by some leading scientists that the science isnt settled at all. (Phil Jones), the admission that the MWP is a possibility, something that other people like historians already know. The science has been bent and distorted to fit the preconcieved notion of "climate change". And anyone who disagrees is a "denier" Nothing more than a blatant attempt to intimidate scientists from seeking the truth.

Of course "the science" isn't settled; science is never settled. The most that science can do is to reject non-science or flawed science. If there is no cause for hysteria, there is no cause for complacency. A very different world is a huge risk. We could end up with fewer resources and lesser living space, and human behavior gives little evidence of people behaving well under the circumstances. The Dutch and the Danes are not going to drown without resistance.

The bottom line. Libs are trying to impose huge, fantastically huge costs to ours and the rest of the world economies on a maybe. The scaremongering that has gone on has been ridiculous. There are already plenty of times in history with global warming and cooling that cannot be attributed to AGW.

Protecting the ecosystems of the world as we know it is the most conservative -- and cautious -- approach possible. In the last ten years or so, we have had ten of the warmest years in human history. Should the pattern hold, some of the places that got record snowfalls could get record heat. It wouldn't take much more heat to make places like Washington and Philadelphia -- and maybe New York and Boston -- insufferable in the summer. It's not enough to say that Florida will have bananas, Georgia will have oranges instead of peaches and cotton, Ohio will be in the cotton belt, and northern Michigan will be in the Corn Belt. Deserts can expand even without global warming (not relevant to the issue of global warming, but when the Ogalala Aquifer gives out, a desert zone could engulf lands that now include Lubbock, Amarillo, Casper, Calgary, and Edmonton).

In the end it doesnt matter. The eco Nazis will use any scenario to justify this false myth. Thankfully they are being exposed. Cap and trade is dead, Copenhagen summit was an utter failure. Thankfully people are waking up!

The myth is that complacency has no cost.

If the Southern ice cap survives the loss of the Northern cap will shift the ITCZ northward by 5 to 10 degrees latitude. This will drastically shrink the Sahara (but southern Europe will become arid) but greatly expand the Kalahari. The Equatorial Forest belt will shift northward with the ITCZ

Originally Posted by Odin

If the Southern ice cap survives the loss of the Northern cap will shift the ITCZ northward by 5 to 10 degrees latitude. This will drastically shrink the Sahara (but southern Europe will become arid) but greatly expand the Kalahari. The Equatorial Forest belt will shift northward with the ITCZ

Does anyone have some idea of what would happen in North America? I figure that much of the core of North America east of the Rockies would get very arid. As winter rains fail in southern California, real estate gets reasonable again there -- much as it is in Namibia. Would the southeastern US become more monsoon-like?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Does anyone have some idea of what would happen in North America? I figure that much of the core of North America east of the Rockies would get very arid. As winter rains fail in southern California, real estate gets reasonable again there -- much as it is in Namibia. Would the southeastern US become more monsoon-like?

The Central US and all of SoCal becomes desert. the West Coast Mediterranean zone will shift northwards into the Pacific SW. The Boreal Forest will shift to the Arctic coast while the Temperate Broadleaf Forest will shift to where the Boreal Forest was. The SE will become like Southern China today, Semitropical Monsoon Forest.

The NY Times reports a Study Says Undersea Release of Methane Is Under Way

There have long been concerns that permafrost on land will melt and may shortly release considerable methane. This study reports it happening at sea. All involved say it is too soon to push panic buttons and move time table for warming effects up significantly. However, a lot of folks are expressing concern and say we need to monitor it.

My educational background is in physics and mathmatics however, one of my mentors is one of the few Doctors of Theoretical Bilology in the country.

My opinions on Climate Change can be summed up pretty easily.

Do I believe that man has "an" effect on climate? Absolutely.

Do I believe man is the only effect on climate? Absolutely not.

Do I believe we can and should take steps to minimize our impact on the earth? Sure

That being said, no one, no scientist, philosopher or crackpot politician has ever made a convincing argument on why the earth would not be better off with a few less people (or more to the point a few billion less).

Now, I am a bit of a misanthrope (truthfully a pretty big one), so I will admit to a bit of bias.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

That being said, no one, no scientist, philosopher or crackpot politician has ever made a convincing argument on why the earth would not be better off with a few less people (or more to the point a few billion less).

There are various ways to reduce populations. I assume the basic approaches to megadeaths implemented by Hitler, Stalin and Mao are not on the table here.

There is modern China's approach, of cutting birth rates by law.

There is also a theory that if one educates and empowers women, and improves the child mortality rate so that one needs not have many children in order to be reasonably certain that some will survive, the result is a reduced birth rate.

I like your goal. You might elaborate on how you might strive to achieve it.