How Global Warming Makes Blizzards Worse...or stuck on stupid

[Peacetrain]

Since at least the 80's when global warming was really starting to be talked about to Al Gore.. one of the hallmarks of global warming (and there is nothing wrong with that description) is that we would see bigger snow storms..because melting ice caps etc put more water in the atmosphere.... I mean seriously.. are people that stuck on stupid, that they did not realize or ever read that snow storms like we are seeing now is part and parcel of climate change.

Now I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer.. but even I knew that!






http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100210/hl_time/08599196229400

As the blizzard-bound residents of the mid-Atlantic region get ready to dig themselves out of the third major storm of the season, they may stop to wonder two things: Why haven't we bothered to invest in a snow blower and, also, what happened to climate change? After all, it stands to reason that if the world is getting warmer - and the past decade was the hottest on record - major snowstorms should become a thing of the past, like Palm Pilots and majority rule in the Senate. Certainly that's what the Virginia state Republican Party thinks: the GOP aired an ad last weekend attacking two Democratic Congressmen for supporting the 2009 carbon-cap-and-trade bill, and using the recent storms to cast doubt on global warming. (See pictures of a massive blizzard hitting Washington, D.C.)

Brace yourselves now - this may be a case of politicians twisting the facts. There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm. As the meteorologist Jeff Masters points out in his excellent blog at Weather Underground, the two major storms that hit Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., this winter - in December and during the first weekend of February - are already among the 10 heaviest snowfalls those cities have ever recorded. The chance of that happening in the same winter is incredibly unlikely.

[dhill926]

1. We is a very stupid country...........n/t

[Peacetrain]

2. Seriously sometimes it scares me how seemingly uneducated

we are... or incapable of connecting three dots to make a line. I am NOT a scientific person by any means, but good grief, the information has been out there for years.. and years..Geez it would seem people would stumble across it just reading Time or Newsweek at the doctors office

[ClassWarrior]

3. No we're not. We're overworked and under-informed.

How else do you explain the measurably intelligent people who mouth this nonsense?

NGU.

[unblock]

27. it's not that we're stupid -- it's that stupidity owns the microphone.

and the scientists just plug away in their labs and their published works get little attention outside of their own small circle of experts. eventually, some of those brilliant insights get turned into products, and all the attention goes to the owners who exploit it for personal profit rather than those who laid the groundwork for it in the first place.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. You can imagine all the naysayers in Alaska

last year when we had one of the coldest winters on record. This year is more "normal," but anyone with eyes can see what's been going on here over the past 30 years. People have such short attention spans.

Just take a look at what's been going on with Portage Glacier.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3141/

[Phx_Dem]

5. Eratic weather patterns are not a RESULT of global warming, they are a SYMPTOM

Rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps cause eratic weather patterns. Pretty f'ing simple to understand unless you're a Republican.

It scares me how stupid Republican are.

[doc03]

6. We had our biggest snowfall ever in 1950 we got like

50" was that global warming? Last night on the weather report they said on average we have a snowfall over 15" around every 15 years. Saturday we got 18" the last time was in around 2004, 1993, 1976, 1964 and the big one in 1950. Nothing unusual here.

[ClassWarrior]

7. All anecdotal. Just because the climate crisis is characterized by extremes, that doesn't mean...

...that extremes didn't exist before the climate crisis.

NGU.

[doc03]

8. So in this case after me giving an example that contradicts

your claim it is just anecdotal. I don't deny there may be global warming or climate change but I think it is just a climatic cycle. So maybe 90% of scientists think it is man made they could be wrong. Look at how many times over the years they make some claim that a certain food causes cancer or heart trouble then a year latter they decide it is good for you after all.

[winyanstaz]

11. I agree with you....

and so do the scientists that submitted their findings to the senate committee about global warming not necessarily being man-made.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb

I actually had some jerk that attacked me and claimed the senate report was a "right-wing" site and refused to believe the facts because the agency reporting was a republican headed committee. bwhahahaaaa talk about denial...

It's stupid to throw out the reports of over 400 respected scientists simply because the committee they reported to was headed by a republican.

I am not a republican..I am a progressive liberal but I can see the truth even when it is put out there by a party I cant stand.

"This new report details how teams of international scientists are dissenting from the UN IPCC’s view of climate science. In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, Argentina, New Zealand and France, nations, scientists banded together in 2007 to oppose climate alarmism. In addition, over 100 prominent international scientists sent an open letter in December 2007 to the UN stating attempts to control climate were “futile.”

[doc03]

12. Interesting link. I see one thing the

environmentalist should be happy over. Back in the 50's and 60's when it snowed around here in a few hours the snow was an ugly gray color. But I notice in 2010 even though the snow fell 4 days ago it is still snow white. Of course back then we had 10's of thousands of good paying manufacturing jobs. So now the air is crystal clear and the snow is snow white but we have over 11% unemployment and an
average wage around $20000 a year. :shrug:

[JoePhilly]

14. Compare it to how often they are RIGHT!!

The scientists you pretend are so unreliable have helped extend the average human life span by DECADES.

There work has not only extended the human life span, its also improved the quality of life.

And when they are "wrong" it is usually not a total reversal ... but a shift in degree, or an expansion of earlier science which has been improved by improved methods. Or can you list a few thousand instance of them being 100% totally wrong when the majority of relevant scientists were in agreement (without going back hundreds of years).

The right likes to play that because our scientific knowledge is at times imperfect, it should be ignored out of hand.

And then the relevant scientists agree at rate of over 90% on this phenomenon ... and most of those "scientists" who do not think global climate change is impacted significantly by man's actions are also not in the relevant fields, a data point often ignored.

[Cha]

18. It wasn't man made before and now it is..

It doesn't take much common sense to realize that man's polution is going to have some adverse effects on the environment and we have to change our filthy habits..like going to alternative energy, recyling, clean up the water, etc, etc.

The oil companies are paying those who are espousing denial..what does that tell us?

[ericgtr]

9. When idiots try to make an argument against global warming I ask about melting glaciers

You will always get a deer in the headlights response.

[Milo_Bloom]

17. What does that prove?

The idiots who argue against "global warming" usually don't deny the fact that the atmosphere is warming, they deny the cause and/or the part that man made polution plays and the effect of that warming.

Their argument: Yes, the planet is going through a natural cycle and nothing we do is going to change it, so why punish manufacturing because of it.

[ericgtr]

21. There is data that proves it's escalated severely over the last hundred years

prior to that it's decline was much, much slower. It's science, not just some made up bullshit by Republicans or freaky deaky evangelicals.

[onenote]

24. many of the idiots who argue against global warming do indeed deny that any such thing is occurring

which is why you see those who argue against it running ads pointing to snowstorms as evidence against "global warming". If they accepted the fact that ocean temperatures have been increasing over time, they would accept that extreme weather is one consequence of that warming, even if they disagree as to the root cause of the warming. But they attempt to make people believe that there is no such thing as global warming or climate change.

[timeforpeace]

26. Just say "Look around! See any glaciers???" Point made, if not taken.

[Fire1]

10. What's strange to me is not the storms themselves but

WHERE they're happening. Places that have never had snow are now getting it! Florida, for example. We're known as the "winter wonderland," and haven't had what we consider a real blizzard in years!

[avaistheone1]

13. I agree the heavy blizzards are all part of global warming - which probably

which would be better described as global climate change. Global climate change is caused both by humans and by nature.

We have to do as much as we can to reduce the man-made causes of global climate change/warming because all living things are at stake including ourselves, and time is running short.

[IcyPeas]

30. Exactly! Let's call it Climate Change not global warming.

[timeforpeace]

15. It's a perfect setup. Hotter is global warming and colder is global warming. Win-win!

[Lyric]

23. Oh--were you under the impression that the whole world had the same climate?

Because unless you did indeed have that false impression, then how is it difficult to comprehend that some places will get hotter, some will get colder, some wetter, some drier? The point is the CHANGE. A few degrees of extra heat doesn't do much to the land, but that extra heat does a LOT to the oceans. Change the ocean temperatures and you change the precipitation and currents--which in turn changes the weather dramatically.

[timeforpeace]

25. It's just too perfect, too precious, and no wonder there is scepticism if you claim EVERYTHING is

global warming.

[neverforget]

31. The East Coast gets hammered by snow. Meanwhile, in Vancouver BC,

they are hosting the Winter Olympics but have no snow. Southern Greenland is in the midst of a heatwave.


Scientists know absolutely nothing about what they are talking about. :sarcasm:

[Lord Helmet]

16. Their ignorance on climate change is cartoonish.

[4lbs]

19. As I said in a previous thread, for the first time I can remember, several weeks ago, during a

series of big thunderstorms in San Diego County, California, we had tornado warnings.

Let me repeat that. T-O-R-N-A-D-O warnings. In San Diego County. In Southern California. The Southern California within 30 miles of the Mexican (Tijuana) border.

I don't recall ever hearing about tornadoes in San Diego growing up here in the San Diego area in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

My father, who was born in the 1930s, and also has lived almost all his life in San Diego also has never heard about anything like that for San Diego. He said the only time he ever heard about the possibility of tornadoes was when he was actually spending a week in Topeka, Kansas, where they have them every year it seems.

However, not San Diego. Until now.

[Igel]

28. And that's not worth much.

Look at it this way: You still haven't heard about tornadoes in San Diego. You've heard about warnings.

Warnings that result probably from Doppler radar measurements that weren't available in the '70s or the '80s. Even when they became available, tornado warnings still aren't common. Houston has warnings a lot more often than they used to because instead of looking over weather maps and trying to guess when conditions are propitious for tornadoes now they look at microbursts and convection.

We still don't have tornadoes very often. Lots of warnings. Not so many tornadoes.

Now, granted, tornadoes have shown up in odd places. Some of it is because of higher population densities. Some is because of climate change.

Some tornadoes are much stronger. Again, some of the reported increase in strength is because of better technology, so we can measure them and know how strong they are. Some of the increase is because people are there to measure them. Where I grew up we think a tornado hit back in the mid-70s. Perhaps. Perhaps a microburst, instead. Perhaps something entirely different; I'm a linguist, not a meteorologist. But there was a whole mess of trees were down in one rectangular area a hundred yards or more long, tossed around. The area was entirely wooded, and owned by a large company with absolutely no interest in the trees. Nobody measured the tree fall, and nobody noticed it on radar because nobody was looking. Now there's a tract of houses there; if the same phenomenon hit, you can bet that it would be recorded on radar and the fact that people lived there would make people measure it and determine what it was.

[tledford]

20. These people are too stupid to comprehend the distinction between WEATHER and CLIMATE. eom

[Cha]

22. "What The Snowpocalypse Tells Us About Global Warming"

<snip>

"Washington D.C.'s getting slammed by record snowfall right now, which means that in addition to unplowed roads and Mad Max-style scenes at Safeway, we also have to suffer through a flurry of Al Gore jokes and Republicans snorting about how this proves global warming is all fake. I guess the prim, boring response is that a single weather event, even an extreme one, doesn't tell us very much about long-term climate trends.

But blah, blah, everyone's heard that line before. A more thoughtful reply comes from meteorologist Jeff Masters, who explains how massive snowstorms in the Northeast are, in fact, quite consistent with a steadily warming world:

There are two requirements for a record snow storm:

1) A near-record amount of moisture in the air (or a very slow moving storm).
2) Temperatures cold enough for snow.

It's not hard at all to get temperatures cold enough for snow in a world experiencing global warming. According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the globe warmed 0.74°C (1.3°F) over the past 100 years. There will still be colder than average winters in a world that is experiencing warming, with plenty of opportunities for snow."

<more>
http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/what-the-snowpocalypse-says-about-global-warming

[Igel]

29. And yet, it's all so unnecessary.

We try to make minutiae into part of a larger pattern. Breaking a glass foretells some horrible calamity. Finding a penny must be part of a larger pattern.

Eh. Humans.

Try, Well, it's probably unrelated to global warming one way or another--some things, as far as we can tell, are just random, and are neither driven by or symptomatic of a larger pattern. Not a very satisfying statement. Then again, humans vastly overgenerate hypotheses to account for randomness. We're great at abductive reasoning. Not so great at worrying about testability.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/polar-pressure-pattern-driving-chill-nearly-off-chart/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/weekinreview/10chang.html?scp=7&sq=weather%20jet%20stream&st=cse

In other words, all the attempts to feel superior to the Neandertal mouth-breathers, all the attempts to justify why this means we can expect global temperatures to soar--just as all the random grousing about how we've entered a new glacial--are unnecessary. Just so much mouth breathing by, it seems, the closely related tribe from the valley next to the Neander Valley, just slightly to the left. The Schwarzbachtal, is it? (It's a case of two sides arguing, both assured that they're right; the thing is, there's no good reason to believe either side is right.)