Community | March 03, 2011 | 47 comments

Extreme winter weather linked to climate change

source: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/02-0

Image
JanforGore
This winter's heavy snowfalls and other extreme storms could well be related to increased moisture in the air due to global climate change, a panel of scientists said on Tuesday.

This extra moisture is likely to bring on extraordinary flooding with the onset of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, as deep snowpack melts and expected heavy rains add to seasonal run-off, the scientists said in a telephone briefing.

As the planet warms up, more water from the oceans is evaporated into the atmosphere, said Todd Sanford, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. At the same time, because the atmosphere is warmer, it can hold onto more of the moisture that it takes in.

Intense storms are often the result when the atmosphere reaches its saturation point, Sanford said.

This year, a series of heavy storms over the U.S. Midwest to the Northeast have dropped up to 400 percent of average snows in some locations, said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground.

The amount of water in that snowpack is among the highest on record, Masters said.

"If you were to take all that water and melt it, it would come out to more than 6 inches over large swaths of the area," Masters said. "If all that water gets unleashed in a hurry, in a sudden warming, and some heavy rains in the area, we could be looking at record flooding along the Upper Mississippi River and the Red River in North Dakota."

That tallies with projections by the U.S. National Weather Service, which last month said a large stretch of the north central United States is at risk of moderate to major flooding this spring.

SPRING CREEP

Spring floods could be exacerbated by spring creep, a phenomenon where spring begins earlier than previously.

"We've documented in the mountains of the U.S. West that the spring runoff pulse now comes between one and three weeks earlier than it used to 60 years ago," Masters said. "And that's because of warmer temperatures tending to melt that snowpack earlier and earlier."

In the last century, global average temperatures have risen by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (.8 Celsius). Last year tied for the warmest in the modern record. One place this warmth showed up was in the Arctic, which is a major weather-maker for the Northern Hemisphere, according to Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

One driver of this winter's "crazy weather," Serreze said, is an atmospheric pattern known as the Arctic Oscillation, which has moved into what climate scientists call a negative phase.

This phase means there is high pressure over the Arctic and low pressure at mid-latitudes, which makes the Arctic zone relatively warm, but spills cold Arctic air southward to places like the U.S. Midwest and Northeast.

This negative Arctic Oscillation has been evident for two years in a row, the same two winters that have had extreme storms and heavy snowfalls.

It is possible, but not certain, that the negative Arctic Oscillation is linked to warming of the Arctic, which is in turn influenced by a decrease in sea ice cover throughout the region.

The only underlying explanation for these events is climate warming due to heightened greenhouse gas levels, Serreze said.
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47 comments // Extreme winter weather linked to climate change

  • Autisticmatt
    • -1
      Autisticmatt  

    • Climate change is real- it has happened since we have been recording it. We can type all day about it- right? Yes, us humans play a small part. In the words of a brilliant comic... "The world will one day shake us off like fleas."- look it up :)

    • 1 year ago
  • Milieu
    • 0
      Milieu  

    • To the tune of "Jesus loves me"

      Climate Change is just a Lie
      'Cause the Kochs, the Truth did buy
      TP weenies to them belong;
      they are weak, but Kochs is strong.

      Yes, Koch Bros love me! Yes, Koch Bros loves me!
      Yes, Koch Bros loves me! The TP tells me so.

      Koch Bros love me! This I know,
      'Cause they Bought me long ago,
      took everything with Evil greed,
      saying, "Let us prey on what they need."

      Koch Bros love me still today,
      telling me just what to say,
      wanting as a thief to steal
      cheat and rape the common weal.

      Yes, Koch Bros love me! Yes, Koch Bros loves me!
      Yes, Koch Bros loves me! The TP tells me so.

    • 1 year ago
  • tommic
    • 0
      tommic  

    • Its no longer a matter of debate, climate change is real, its in progress, in all likelyhood we will fail to stop it from happening, In the end costing tens of trillions of dollars in economic damage, and untold lives,refugees, and a change in human migration along with droughts where they never where, deluges and floods where they never were, all changing the face of the world and humanity all very slowly. Because we cannot find common ground in agreement that it real. which I doubt will happen. Then of course comes famine, disease and all the rest in decline.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • tommic:

      Absolutely right Tom.

      Oil is now selling for over $100 per barrel, and indications are that it is likely to go higher in the near future, and very quickly.

      Change may come no matter who wants it or doesn't want it or why.

      I think it is only prudent to recognize this and make plans accordingly.

      There are PLENTY of reasons to get rid of the use of coal and oil even if we take climate change off the table entirely. Air pollution, water pollution, destruction of the land and its ability to sustain life, social inequality, political damage, economic damage----all are spinning out of control.

      We have better options.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • 0
      IceKat  
    • Image

    • Knowing extremist's attention span is pretty short, and their understanding of science is severely limited, I will present here a couple of relevant paragraphs from an article by Martin Hoerling, Katy Human and Barb Deluisi of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory.

      This is a March 2010 article explaining the record U.S snowstorms and their links to Global Warming.... or not!

      "After a series of record-setting snowstorms hit the mid-Atlantic region this winter, some people asked NOAA if humans could somehow be to blame. Specifically, they wanted to know if human-induced global warming could have caused the snowstorms due to the fact that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor."

      Now, we already know the answer, don't we? Extremists told us warmer winters due to man-made Global Warming will give us less snow. That was what the IPCC told us in 2001 and of course that was gospel to the extremists.
      Now, when reality bites them in the ass they have to move the goal-posts, now Global Warming means more snow. So what does NOAA have to say about it?

      "The CSI Team’s analysis indicates that’s not likely. They found no evidence — no human “fingerprints” — to implicate our involvement in the snowstorms. If global warming was the culprit, the team would have expected to find a gradual increase in heavy snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region as temperatures rose during the past century. But historical analysis revealed no such increase in snowfall. Nor did the CSI team find any indication of an upward trend in winter precipitation along the eastern seaboard."

      Oh dear!!! Quick, someone find a link between NOAA and an oil company.

      http://www.climatewatch.noaa.gov/2010/articles/forensic-meteorology-solves-the-m...

      Hopefully this will put an end to the extremists' stupid arguments, but don't hold your breath.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • 0
      IceKat  

    • So now we have established that the planet is not burning to a cinder, we can now return to the subject of this story, "Extreme winter weather linked to climate change."
      Basically we have a bunch of misguided extremists (who call themselves scientists) trying to convince people that winter snow is caused by Global Warming. It's enough to look at the way they write to see that they haven't really got any confidence in what they're saying.

      "This winter's heavy snowfalls and other extreme storms could well be related to increased moisture..." could well be?

      "This extra moisture is likely to bring on extraordinary flooding..." is likely to?

      "...as deep snowpack melts and expected heavy rains... " expected heavy rains?

      Hardly a convincing set of facts there. So many ifs, buts and maybes... maybe they really haven't got a clue about what they're talking about? Maybe some of the extremists should learn to read scientific facts rather than relying on leftist propaganda like this.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      Life is full of IFs, BUTs, or MAYBEs.

      IF you pull out a gun and point it at your head, then pull the trigger----you will be killed.

      BUT, only when there is a bullet in the chamber.

      MAYBE, your aim is good and the bullet strikes you in a vital area.

      POSSIBLY you'd be killed right away, or possibly you'd linger on for a long while until complications from the initial wound kill you.

      MAYBE you will recover but be terribly impaired.

      The "extremists" are telling you it is a good idea not to point a gun at your head and pull the trigger----then spinning the cylinder and doing it again, over and over and over.

      I leave it to anyone reading this to decide who is the "extremist".

      I think you are an idiot of the first magnitude.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • Image

    • http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008.htm

      Some need to join cherrypickers anonymous.

      ' A common claim, made by those who deny man made global warming, is that the Earth has been cooling recently. 1998 was the first year claimed by 'skeptics' for "Global Cooling". Then 1995 followed by 2002. 'Skeptics' have also emphasized the year 2007-2008 and most recently the last half of 2010.

      NASA and climate scientists throughout the world have said, however, that the years starting since 1998 have been the hottest in all recorded temperature history. Do these claims sound confusing and contradictory? Has the Earth been cooling, lately?

      To find out whether there is actually a "cooling trend" it is important to consider all of these claims as a whole, since they follow the same pattern. In making these claims, 'skeptics' take short periods of time, usually about 10 years or less, out of context ("Cherry picked.") from 30 years of evidence; the minimum needed to make a valid judgment.

      'Skeptics' also take selected areas of the world where cold records for the recent past are being set while ignoring other areas where all time heat records are being set.

      The temperature chart below is based on information acquired from NASA heat sensing satellites. It covers a 30 year period from 1979 to the present. The red curve indicates the average temperature throughout the entire Earth.

      The red line represents the average temperature. The top of the curves are warmer years caused by El Niño; a weather phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean gives out heat thus warming the Earth. The bottoms of the curves are usually La Niña years which cool the Earth. Volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in 1991 will also cool the Earth so they are not counted. Although they are effected by Global Warming, El Niños and La Niñas occur whether or not there is Global Warming.
      Figure 1: University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) temperature chart from January 1979 to November 2010. This chart is shown with no trend lines so the viewer may make his own judgment.

      Below is the same temperature chart, showing how 'skeptics', manipulate the data to give the impression that 'Global Cooling' began in 1998. They left out 19 years of inconvenient data as well as failed to make a distinction between warm El Niños and cool La Niñas.

      Figure 2: Illustration of how 'skeptics' distort the evidence.

      What do the past 30 years of temperature data really show? Below is the answer.

      Figure 3:Trend lines showing the sudden jump in temperatures in the 1995 La Niña (Green lines) and the 1998 (Pink lines) El Niño events. Brown line indicates overall increase in temperatures.

      The chart above clearly shows that temperatures have gone up. They are, however, not going up in a steady curve as most people would expect. They are, instead, rising in a stepwise fashion. That means they can remain steady for a few years and, all of a sudden, jump up; then remain steady and soon jump up again.

      When temperatures for the warm El Niño years (Pink lines) during 1980-1995 are compared to 1998-2010, there is a sudden increase of at least 0.2o Centigrade (0.36o Fahrenheit). Temperatures also jumped up by about 0.15oC (0.27oF) between the cool La Niña years (Green lines) of 1979-1989 and those of 1996-2008 (the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 lowered the Earth's temperatures in the midst of an El Niño cycle). The overall trend from 1979 through November 2010 (Brown line) shows an unmistakable rise.

      While these increases do not sound like much they are more than enough to disrupt weather systems and cause severe damage to crops and human populations.

      In spite of these facts, 'skeptics' simply keep changing their dates for 'Global Cooling'.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • IceKat
    • 0
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      Skepticalscience? Oh, you must be kidding?
      Why the outdated chart Jan?

      Again it's not worth wasting too much time here, the extremists will believe the misinformation presented here simply because they don't understand the science.

      "NASA and climate scientists throughout the world have said, however, that the years starting since 1998 have been the hottest in all recorded temperature history. "

      A very incorrect statement. Note the use of the scaremongering word "hottest". If anyone really thinks 0.8C above average is "hot" then fair enough, but really...
      John Cook is picking an argument that no-one else is arguing against. It is a well known and accepted fact that the planet warmed during the last century, but even some of the most radical extremists now have to admit that there has been no warming for over fifteen years. With negative temperature anomalies now evident it is becoming even more difficult for the extremists to carry on with their failed man-made Global Warming theory.
      If anyone is looking for a trio into misinformation land, take a look at skepticalscience and notice how Cook uses almost anything to explain the lack of warming.
      "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. " Trenberth's famous line. Cook even tries to explain this one away, "it's natural variability"!!!
      No, I'm sorry but John Cook and his skepticalscience site have been ripped to shreds so many times, but he's saying what the radicals want to hear, and that's why they always refer to skepticalscience as their first source of misinformation.

      What has to be noted is that JanforGore does not have the intelligence to say this in her own words. Posting an outdated story from a debunked website is the best she can do, well, at least it's got a link, eh Jan?

    • 1 year ago
  • Ian_Judge_Lord
    • -2
      Ian_Judge_Lord  
    • Image

    • "...In a manner that is either typically guilt-ridden or typically culpable, our most trusted, albeit if only not our best, minds are of the strong opinion that the afore-mentioned current warming trend began around the year 1850. This, when critically considered, is not all that surprising, since that is around the time that the scientific equipment was developed which first allowed us to accurately measure the said trend.
      It is well-documented and widely known that the currently observed warming trend began around 1800, at the end of a 500-year period known as the “Little Ice Age”, which lasted from 1300-1800 AD, and during which lakes and rivers in Europe froze over.
      Before that, beginning in about 1300, the world went through what has come to be known as a Little Ice Age, or “Mini-Ice Age”. During the period of unusual; but, as has been learned since, not entirely unnatural; cold, crops failed, and rivers that had once been major commerce routes froze over in winter. Famine and disease swept over the old world; including, beginning in around 1347, the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, the last reported outbreak of which was recorded in around 1700.
      The Little Ice Age lasted until about 1800; which, not coincidentally, are when temperatures began rising at their current rate.
      This, in turn, followed a 300-year span called the “Medieval Warm Period”, when temperatures throughout the globe were significantly higher than they are today, as is attested to by the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores..."

      "...This relatively simple fact, coupled with the knowledge that, while concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses have been rising at a consistent rate since about 1800, in the period between 1930 and 1970, global temperatures actually went down, and glaciers in Europe, North America, and around the world, advanced, would lead any logical and intelligent studier to conclude that human beings are not, and indeed could not be, causing the warming trend being observed..."

      Why I Don’t Hug Trees
      http://judgian12365.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/introduction/

      “Solving” Nature
      http://judgian12365.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/solving-nature/

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • -1
      Gravity_Man  
    • Ian_Judge_Lord:

      1850? That was 140 years after the Industrial Revolution kicked in gear with Thomas Newcomen's improvement to the Watt steam engine. That would be then when the tree cutting was also in full speed ahead gear.

      Then they discovered liquid gold, Texas tea, crude oil, so crude oil bumped up the pace and got us where we are today.

      So where are we today? Using solar to trap sun rays and turn water into steam to drive great turbines. hahahaha => We've come back to steam, which means we have also chosen to remain a Type Zero civilization.

      Somewhere Mr. Michio Kaku is sobbing. No soup for YOU Kaku.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  

    • The National Weather Service reports that the 66.7" of snow for the 2010-11 meteorological winter (December-February) was the second largest amount on record at Minneapolis. The record snowiest winter was in 1966-67, when 71.7" fell. It was also the 4th wettest winter on record. The 4.91" of precipitation was 173% of normal.
      http://capitalclimate.blogspot.com/2011/03/minneapolis-snowfall-update-second.ht...

      Well, imagine that, 1966-67 had more snow than this winter. Did CO2 cause that too? Was it climate change? Global Warming? Biodistress? Irritable climate Syndrome?
      1966-67 was also a cold winter, just like 2010-11. Maybe there's a link between cold and snow? How strange!!!

    • 1 year ago
  • Milieu
    • 0
      Milieu  

    • I Really do wish you stinkin' tree huggers would get the facts straight.

      I have it straight from Cato Inst., AFP, Club for Growth and all the other Koch scientific research palaces.

      Global weather changes are nothing more than a way for the Liberals to scare us into giving the best source of energy that exists.

      Faux and the Kocks lying their F#@^# @$$ off. The best source of energy that ever was.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  

    • And who are these "scientists"? No less than the Union of Concerned Scientists.

      The Union of Concerned Scientists is nothing more than a left-wing lobby group and has absolutely nothing to do with science.

      Major problems with their argument include weather balloon and satellite data showing that:
      1) Tropospheric relative and specific humidity has significantly declined since the 'safe CO2 levels' of 1948.
      2) Atmospheric water vapor has declined since satellite measurements began in 1983.
      3) There has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.
      4) The IPCC predicted milder winters and that the "milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms."

      Once again the extremists change their tune to fit in with the results. This is amazing stuff and an easy life for the extremists. All you need to do is look at what is happening now and then find a link to global warming/CO2, any link will do.

      A 2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that the resorts could lose a quarter of their snow in 15 years, and half by 2050. The worst case was a 96 per cent loss of snow by mid-century. Then there was the famous statement by Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia who told us, within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.

      Just watch what happens if the planet continues to cool. No doubt you'll be hearing that this is consistent with global warming and was predicted. It's sad, really, but no-one takes much notice of extremists anyway.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +2
      Wetdog  
    • Image
    • IceKat:

      IceKat----" And who are these "scientists"? No less than the Union of Concerned Scientists.

      The Union of Concerned Scientists is nothing more than a left-wing lobby group and has absolutely nothing to do with science."-------

      -----"Formation 1969
      Headquarters Cambridge, MA,
      United States
      Membership over 200,000
      Exec. Dir. Kathleen Rest
      President Kevin Knobloch
      Founder Kurt Gottfried
      Website http://www.ucsusa.org"-------

      ------" The Union of Concerned Scientists was founded in 1969 by faculty and students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scientists formed the organization to "initiate a critical and continuing examination of governmental policy in areas where science and technology are of actual or potential significance" and "devise means for turning research applications away from the present emphasis on military technology toward the solution of pressing environmental and social problems."[2] The organization employs scientists, economists, engineers engaged in environmental and security issues, as well as executive and support staff.[3]
      One of the co-founders was physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Henry Kendall, who served for many years as chairman of the board of UCS. In 1977, the UCS sponsored a "Scientists' Declaration on the Nuclear Arms Race" calling for an end to nuclear weapons tests and deployments in the United States and Soviet Union [4]. In response to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the UCS sponsored a petition entitled "An Appeal to Ban Space Weapons" [5].
      In 1992, Kendall presided over the UCS' Warning to Humanity, which called for "fundamental change" to address a range of security and environmental issues. The document was signed by 1700 scientists, including a majority of the Nobel prize winners in the sciences[6]."--------

      ====================================================================
      1700 scientists and a majority of Nobel prize winners in the sciences. I'd say that UCS does indeed have something to do with science. It is you who have nothing to do with science. What is your occupation and qualification to tell us " The Union of Concerned Scientists is nothing more than a left-wing lobby group and has absolutely nothing to do with science"?
      =====================================================================

      ------" According to Charity Navigator, an independent, non-profit organization that evaluates American charities, the UCS maintained $20,575,731 in assets, $5,514,946 in liabilities, $15,060,785 in net assets, and $14,112,057 in working capital, as well as $10,058,784 in program expenses, $813,335 in administrative expenses, and $1,703,907 in fundraising expenses in fiscal year 2006. In 2007, the Union of Concerned Scientists received a four (out of four) star rating from Charity Navigator.[8]"--------

      So, who should we believe, you and your insistence on business as usual at huge profits for the most profitable companies in the world. Or, the vast majority of the world's scientists whom you say are wrong, just because you say so. And you won't even tell us your name, qualifications or occupation.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • Wetdog:

      Who to believe? Do as you always do, believe who you want. If you think the UCS is a legitimate selection of real scientists then believe them, by all means. Most people know them to be nothing more than a group of extremist activists.
      Do I really say the vast majority of the world's scientists are wrong? I don't think so, all I do is present data and information from real sources, often the same sources you take information from, but unlike you I tend to understand the information. I distinctly remember you posting this, "At a CO2 level of 4400 ppm = 4.4% CO2, you would have died within a few minutes if you had been around." seemingly not even knowing that 4400ppm is actually 0.44% not 4.4% - fail!

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      Then give us your name and qualifications.

      One typo. So?

      Pretty sharp eye for someone who can't even figure out that if cold air leaves the arctic, warm air has to come in from somewhere else.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • Wetdog:

      Typo? Rubbish, you don't understand the science. It wasn't just the figure you got wrong, it was the effects of CO2 on the human body you didn't understand.

      "At a CO2 level of 4400 ppm = 4.4% CO2, you would have died within a few minutes if you had been around."
      Not only was the figure wrong, your assumption was also wrong. You would need 40,000ppm to kill you within minutes.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      Here is a simple experiment you can do at home.

      Ask your mommy for a plastic bag. One that will fit over your head but not too big.

      Put the bag over your head, and secure the bottom with tape around your neck so that there are no leaks.

      Now, on a sheet of paper record how long you can breathe.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Not in the lungs gravity_man----in the blood serum. CO2 is carried from the cells to the lungs in the blood in the serum, the liquid part of blood. CO2 is highly soluble in H20. When this happens it forms carbonic acid. The normal pH balance in the blood is 7.35 to 7.45---a very narrow range, which translates into a partial pressure of 35mm Hg to 45mm Hg in the alveoli. As CO2 builds up, pH drops.......about .1 pH logarithm unit per 10 mm Hg. When pH drops below 7.0, heart nerve conduction becomes more and more sporadic and eventually ceases. When the heart stops effectively circulating oxygen to the cells, brain death occurs within 4 to 6 minutes.

      Highly simplified, but that is what happens.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Wetdog:

      I had a doctor in 2002 upset me to such an extent he threw me into some sort of brain death/catatonic sensory shut down. All my sense of hearing, sight, feeling were GONE. There wasn't any passage of time either. It was like having the main circuit box switch turned off. I have no idea if I was breathing, but I imagine it stopped.

      I stayed sitting up though. When the switch came back on and I opened my eyes he had moved to a different place in the room so I looked around and found him and he raised his wrist, looked at his watch and says calmly "You've been gone for 3 minutes". He wasn't making any moves whatever to revive me.

      I think maybe he thought I was faking. When I was "dead" it was like the blackest black you've ever been in, black on top of black. I didn't panic. If I had you could say adrenalin brought me back. I calmly explored around. All that was there was black, nothing.

      People wonder why I feel doctor's tried to kill me. That's because more than one of em did. hahahaha

      When I drowned to death as a kid I was completely gone that time too. When I opened my eyes I found I had been dragged out of the pool and laid flat on my back in hot summer sun, kids all around looking at me, the dead guy. The sun on my skin should have caused extra melatonin and put me on deeper into the next life but, instead it woke me up.

      I didn't even rate black that time. Anywho, I'm very familiar having firsthand knowledge of the matters you have defined. You're okay.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  

    • RSS data also shows a fall in global temperatures.

      2010 July +0.564C
      2010 August +0.553C
      2010 September +0.510C
      2010 October +0.303C
      2010 November +0.316C
      2010 December +0.219C
      2011 January +0.083C

      Is anyone really concerned that the average global temperature is now +0.083C above average?

      Note: Satellite data is scored upon by the extremists because it is not affected by bad placement of sensors, UHI effect or limited coverage and therefore gives a more accurate reading, one which differs from the tweaked ground-based thermometers. This accuracy shows a cooling trend and the extremists hate that, they hate anything that disrupts their religious wailing.
      Ground-based thermometers are sparse in many areas, notably the Arctic, and rely on unreliable interpolated readings.
      No wonder "the Arctic is warming" when GISS have very few (if any) actual thermometers above 80degrees north, even the alarmist Hansen of GISS admits Arctic temperatures are just a guess.
      "There's no doubt that estimates of Arctic warming are uncertain, and should be regarded with caution," Hansen said.
      Hmmm, notice that, "estimates" of Arctic warming. Alarmists need to make thing up. Extremists do too. One well known extremist had to rely on a falsified picture of a flooded city to make her comment appear to have some semblance of substance. Unfortunately for her she didn't understand the subject, the science, or the fact that she was actually using a photo-shopped image rather than a photo of reality. But that's how these people work; they have to make things up because the reality, the real-world evidence tells a whole different story.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      RSS data also shows a fall in global temperatures.

      2010 July +0.564C
      2010 August +0.553C
      2010 September +0.510C
      2010 October +0.303C
      2010 November +0.316C
      2010 December +0.219C
      2011 January +0.083C

      I see a lot of plus signs there. Does that mean above average?

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
  • Wetdog
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  

    • http://www.desmogblog.com/roy-spencer

      More cherrypicked bs data from UAH_ University of Alabama at Huntsville and Dr. Roy Spencer, another mouthpiece for the Heartland Institute.
      _ "Spencer is a research scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Spencer has published 25 research articles in peer-reviewed journals, mainly on the subject of satellite climate measurements.

      Spencer and the "Interfaith Stewardship Alliance"
      Spencer is listed as a "scientific advisor" for an organization called the "Interfaith Stewardship Alliance" (ISA). According to their website, the ISA is "a coalition of religious leaders, clergy, theologians, scientists, academics, and other policy experts committed to bringing a proper and balanced Biblical view of stewardship to the critical issues of environment and development."

      In July 2006, Spencer co-authored an ISA report refuting the work of another religious organization called the Evangelical Climate Initiative. The ISA report was titled A Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor: an Evangelical Response to Global Warming. Along with the report was a letter of endorsement signed by numerous representatives of various organizations, including 6 that have received a total of $2.32 million in donations from ExxonMobil over the last three years.

      The other authors of the ISA's report were Calvin Beisner, Paul Driessen and Ross McKitrick.

      Satellite Research Refuted
      According to an August 12, 2005 New York Times article, Spencer, along with another well-known "skeptic," John Christy, admitted they made a mistake in their satellite data research that they said demonstrated a cooling in the troposphere (the earth's lowest layer of atmosphere). It turned out that the exact opposite was occurring and the troposphere was getting warmer.

      "These papers should lay to rest once and for all the claims by John Christy and other global warming skeptics that a disagreement between tropospheric and surface temperature trends means that there are problems with surface temperature records or with climate models," said Alan Robock, a meteorologist at Rutgers University.

      Spencer and the Heartland Institute
      Spencer is listed as an author for the Heartland Institute, a US think tank that has received $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

      The Heartland Institute has also received funding from Big Tobacco over the years and continues to make the claim that "anti-smoking advocates" are exaggerating the health threats of smoking.

      Spencer and the George C. Marshall Institute
      Spencer is listed as an "Expert" with the George C. Marshall Institute, a US think tank that has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

      Spencer and ICECAP
      Spencer is listed as an "expert" by the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP).

      ICECAP is a global warming skeptic organization that believes we should be preparing ourselves for the next ice age.

      ICECAP was initially registered by a representative of the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), Joseph D'Aleo. SPPI is a prominent global warming denier group backed by the Frontiers of Freedom Institute (FoF). FoF has received over $1,272,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

      Spencer and Tech Central Station
      Listed as an author for Tech Central Station daily (TCS), an organization that until recently was owned and operated by a Republican lobby firm called DCI Group.

      Spencer, Blunder, Swindle and Confusion

      Spencer also operates his own blog on global warming in which he describes himself as a "climatologist, author, [and] former NASA scientist." On his blog, Spencer states that "the extra carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause the observed warming in the last 100 years."

      Spencer also published a book in April, 2010, titled The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World's Top Climatologists which is prominently advertised on his blog. Apart from concluding that global warming is likely caused by a natural cycle, Blunder poses the question, that "maybe putting more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing."

      Spencer published Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians, and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor in 2008. Confusion is described as "forsaking blindingly technical statistics" about global warming to describe the issue in "simple terms." In other words, the book tries to sidestep any valid research on climate change.

      Roy Spencer also appeared on the notorious film The Great Global Warming Swindle to talk about the "Great Science Funding Conspiracy." Spencer claims that "climate scientists need there to be a problem in order to get funding."

      Swindle received critical response from the scientific community, including a letter addressed to ABC signed by thirty-seven British Scientists that claimed "the misrepresentations of facts and views, both of which occur in your programme, are so serious that repeat broadcasts of the programme, without amendment, are not in the public interest. In view of the seriousness of climate change as an issue, it is crucial that public debate about it is balanced and well-informed."

      ABC Australia’s Tony Jones also brings the film's scientific accuracy into question in an interview with the film’s director, Martin Durkin."
      ________
      Pathetic.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      Pathetic... where is the substance in that? it's nothing more than an ad-hominem attack, and a very poor one.

      So let's get this right. A politically biased ultra-extremist, well known for her lack of knowledge in this field, uses a well known propaganda and disinformation website to 'debunk' one of the most respected sources of climate data... you can't make this stuff up - hilarious!!!

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • JanforGore:

      $676,500 from ExxonMobil truly Jan very pathetic. Where's my $676,500 and we'll be getting some Ocean+Energy real fast => http://current.com/technology/92858210_ocean-energy-fishing-8-tons-per-square-in...

      Me thinks the game is rigged and the House keeps winning => The House Crude Oil Built, The House we are locked inside like little children surviving on one jar of Deepwater Horizon Peanut Butter because our parents left us no other food in the house.

      Ocean Pressure 8 tons per square inch, for the taking.

      TAKE IT RUN THE BALL; FUEL NEVER RUNS OUT.

      SET THE BALL DOWN OTHER SIDE OF

      THE GOAL LINE ALREADY.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • JanforGore:

      Power Magnification Jan. Remember. Solar can be designed to re-heat itself in a circle, a cycle, a heat-maintaining circle & cycle Jan. Power beyond what is normal is already available Jan.

      One-time Solar is not good enough. Take a gear Jan, climb the hill with me, the hill of exponential power. Solar can do SO MUCH MORE than one-stroke. I know the tricks Jan. Listen to me Jan => when the sun goes behind the clouds ya need an automatic temperature shut-off door that holds Heat in the system til the sun comes back enforce. The system sits there ready-to-go already WARMED & PRIMED.

      Blows crude oil out of the water when you know the TRICKS.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  

    • Just as the extremists tried to blame the 2010 Russian heatwave on man, now they blame snowstorms on man. Fortunately there are people out there who actually have some grasp of reality.

      NOAA's statement:

      "...greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia. The natural process of atmospheric blocking, and the climate impacts induced by such blocking, are the principal cause for this heat wave. It is not known whether, or to what extent, greenhouse gas emissions may affect the frequency or intensity of blocking during summer. It is important to note that observations reveal no trend in a daily frequency of July blocking over the period since 1948, nor is there an appreciable trend in the absolute values of upper tropospheric summertime heights over western Russia for the period since 1900. The indications are that the current blocking event is intrinsic to the natural variability of summer climate in this region, a region which has a climatological vulnerability to blocking and associated heat waves (e.g., 1960, 1972, 1988)."

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • IceKat:

      ?? I'm not currently losing any sleep over the RUSSIANS. But I do imagine some of them are losing sleep over the US coming crashing to the ground [celebrating our impending demise late into the night].

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101115_warming.html

      Gee, NOAA.


      "The troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere closest to the Earth, is warming and this warming is broadly consistent with both theoretical expectations and climate models, according to a new scientific study that reviews the history of understanding of temperature changes and their causes in this key atmospheric layer.

      Scientists at NOAA, the NOAA-funded Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS), the United Kingdom Met Office, and the University of Reading in the United Kingdom contributed to the paper, “Tropospheric Temperature Trends: History of an Ongoing Controversy,” a review of four decades of data and scientific papers to be published today by Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews - Climate Change, a peer-reviewed journal.

      The paper documents how, since the development of the very first climate models in the early 1960s, the troposphere has been projected to warm along with the Earth’s surface because of the increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This expectation has not significantly changed even with major advances in climate models and is in accord with our basic physical understanding of atmospheric processes.

      In the 1990s, observations did not show the troposphere, particularly in the tropics, to be warming, even though surface temperatures were rapidly warming. This lack of tropospheric warming was used by some to question both the reality of the surface warming trend and the reliability of climate models as tools. This new paper extensively reviews the relevant scientific analyses — 195 cited papers, model results and atmospheric data sets — and finds that there is no longer evidence for a fundamental discrepancy and that the troposphere is warming.

      “Looking at observed changes in tropospheric temperature and climate model expectations over time, the current evidence indicates that no fundamental discrepancy exists, after accounting for uncertainties in both the models and observations,” said Peter Thorne, a senior scientist with CICS in Asheville, N.C., and a senior researcher at North Carolina State University. CICS is a consortium jointly led by the University of Maryland and North Carolina State University. "

      cont.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      And the bit Jan intentionally left out...

      "The study was funded by UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and NOAA."

      And you call yourself intelligent, Jan? Come on, really. This is a government funded study with a pre-determined result. And you can't see that? They really have you mesmerised, don't they?

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      Look, you are nothing but a shill here and everyone knows it. Yes it was funded by NOAA ( and anyone could see anything in it because I POST LINKS) that organization you only cherrypick half quotes without links from to suit your agenda. People here know you only post photoshopped cherrypicked graphs from the Monckton collection and parrot the denier line hook line and sinker. Your constant following of me in every thread on this topic only proves as it has for months that you are either obsessed or were assigned to them for a reason. Go crawl back under the rock you came from. You aren't changing minds here with your pathetic attempts to deny reality and I don't have time to spend with people like you who are responsible for what we now see and will be culpable for the world our children live in. Actually, people like you make me sick.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      And now you accuse me of posting Photoshopped images? Well, I think you'll find that I have never used a single image from Lord Monckton, and have never altered an image in order to make it appear to be something else... unlike you Jan!!!

      Remember the Photoshopped image (shown here) of London that you thought was Brisbane? And you posted it along with the line, "Oh, and on edit: before I too get attacked for using a "scaremongering" picture, that is Brisbane after the recent flooding. "Oops... you couldn't have been more wrong. So, which one of us posts Photoshopped images Jan? If your version of reality was real, then why the need to use doctored images?

      Links? No I don't always post links because I don't always have them to hand. I do, however, post relevant source information, and quotes which don't need a link. If every piece of information was only valid with a link we'd be in a pretty poor state.
      You do sometimes post links, great, but you also leave a lot of relevant information out in the hope that people won't go looking for it. Cherrypicking? oh yes, you're good at that.

      Unlike you, I rarely post opinions here. I merely stick to real-world verifiable data and facts. People can read them and make up their own minds. I don't care either way what conclusion they come to, but I do know a lot of people have been swayed by my posts, and that is nice to see.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  

    • It's not worth spending more than a minute or two on this as it has already been debunked time and time again.

      "Specifically, they wanted to know if human-induced global warming could have caused the snowstorms due to the fact that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor. The [NOAA] CSI Team’s analysis indicates that’s not likely. They found no evidence — no human “fingerprints” — to implicate our involvement in the snowstorms. If global warming was the culprit, the team would have expected to find a gradual increase in heavy snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region as temperatures rose during the past century. But historical analysis revealed no such increase in snowfall."

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • +2
      Gravity_Man  

    • When massive quantities of snow melt water comes sloshing down the sleuce it has more than water in it. It brings all the poisons, fertilizers, animal feces, our feces, bird feces, reptilian feces and everything else urine with it. Pesticide build up. All the chemicals dumped into the over flooded sewers.

      Good way to demolish as many species we can?

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • Image

    • Here we go again... "As the planet warms up..." unfortunately for the uneducated extremists there is satellite data out there that shows clearly that for the past few months the planet has been cooling. This year global warming took a dive and now we are into negative temperature anomalies. For those extremists who have difficulty with scientific data, this simply means it's getting colder. Whatever happened to the CO2 induced warming?
      2011 January -0.010C
      2011 February -0.018C

      Did CO2 take a holiday? Does CO2 only cause global warming when it's convenient? Maybe it's waiting for the summer?

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      You're full of it. The troposphere is warming and you know it and your UAH bs has already been debunked . You need to find another line of work because you suck as an oil shill.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      Oh there you go again, the same old line - "IceKat's an oil shill"
      Don't worry, one day you'll manage to come put with something worth reading, I'm not holding my breath though.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      'one day you'll manage to come put with something worth reading'...

      Which is why you follow every word. You are an oil shill and that was established here months ago and it is all you post. Which is why you are virtually ignored here, but there are those times when your lies, propaganda and outright BS has to be countered. Now I'm done in this thread with you. Tell whoever sends you the denier talking point e-mails that they suck at that too.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      I'm an oil shill... how many more times are you going to come out with that? It's very tiresome y'know Jan. But, if I'm an oil shill, what drives Jan-for-GORE? You mean to tell me you're totally impartial? If Al Gore turned around tomorrow and announced Global Warming was a myth, where would that leave you? You are well aware that the planet has entered a cooling phase yet you deny it. Why? Because it doesn't fit in with your "the planet is burning" philosophy?
      For one who purports to be so in tune with nature you have a strange way of looking at how your world works.
      Continue to deny the facts Jan.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  

    • But remember, when summer hits this same area and we are sweltering in 100 plus temperatures and extreme rain as we did last summer, you won't hear a peep out of a denier then.

    • 1 year ago
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