"Global Warming?!! Not!! It Snowed in So Cal." Topic

I live in what can generously be described as low desert. To be more specific, its scrub/chapparal rather than sand. Its a really good area to grow citrus. There is a range of low mountains that seperate the valley I live in from the Pacific Ocean which is about 15-20 miles away as the crow flies.

Suffice it to say, that I live in an area where rain is not frequent. Snow is not unknown – it will occasionaly collect on the 2,500 foot mountains above my house – but that's only once or twice a decade. We can see snow on the San Gabriel Mountains across the valley. And that's generally how we like it – we can visit it when we want to.

But today, with the temperature reading at 40°F, we started getting little flakes drifting from the sky at 7:30. Then the snow came down a little harder – not enough to blanket anything, but about like a good rain. The flakes lasted for about 15-30 seconds after they landed. Then, it alternated between pebble-sized hail and more light snow for another 10 minutes. The last part of this occurred while the sun had broken through the clearing clouds.

Very surreal.

And tonight is supposed to be colder. Pity that the clouds are blocking my view of Comet McNaught.

Wyatt

Um, you do know that global warming (better called climate change) means more weather, not necessarily warmer weather? More energy in the system = more strange things happening.

Yes, well, it snowed yesterday here in Stockholm, Sweden too… for the first time all winter!

So in response to "Global Warming?!! Not!!" I will only say: Is too!

Welcome to the strange weather. Where I live, we used to get regular snow storms – the kind where we got LOTS of snow – feet even. Now, we hardly get any snow, drought is going on for nearly a decade. We do get extremely cold weather, followed by rapid warming on a scale unseen before. Enjoy the snow and the additional moisture – as we say in Montana, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, it will change!

Wyatt, you may have had more than Scranton, PA.
We had our first dusting on Tuesday.

parejkoj, I never tell people that they have no sense of humor. I tell them that they are immune to irony. You, sir, are immune to irony.

We've had 40s-50s through most of this winter so far here in the upper midwest and I love it! Bring on global warming I am all for it!

Remember Freezing is a Warming process and Boiling is a Cooling process

(-17 here this am)

It was nearly 50 here in Pittsburgh today…. It hit 60 last week then the next day it snowed….

Cory

I live in Northern Wisconsin. We had one day in December with a high temperature below freezing in 2006! That is unheard of.

>Um, you do know that global warming (better called climate change) means more weather, not necessarily warmer weather?

Riiiight… that's the neat response that was thought up by global warming enthusiasts when it was pointed out to them that the planet wasn't necessarily getting warmer everywhere.

>More energy in the system = more strange things happening.

Better blast a bigger hole in that ozone layer to let some of the excess energy out!

Yours skeptically,

w.

And yet the Northeast is experiencing an extremely warm winter. Warm enough that oil prices are dropping in a season when they normally rise.

Anyone who does not believe that humans are vastly effecting the climate and overall ecology of the planet are either not paying very much attention or are simply willfully ignorant.

Actually the Sun's cycle has more to do with the weather than what man does. For every study that says that man is causing global warming there are other studies that say other wise. There are too many factors that have not been considered for anything definitive.

whitemanticore, poppycock. Human effects are minimal. Otherwise, what caused the ice ages of the past? Humans then were either non existent, or were living agrarian life styles that had no impact at all on the earth's weather. Fossil fuels are not the cause of global warming, not even a significant addition. There are other explanations, most either not understood or recognized yet.

One thing is certain, warm periods in earth's geologic history going back hundreds of thousands of years, are in the tiny minority: and according to the record, OUR warm period is almost over. So I say, any warming humans can cause is a good thing. Keep the cold off as long as possible….

1066.us

I hear that the surface temp of other planets have gone up also.
Must be man made……….

This looks more like global whining to me…

Hey, if we had Ice Ages in the past, what happened?

*draws in breath sharply* …… global warming?!

I don't think that humans "effect" anything. They may be "affecting" some things though.

All the extinctions have nothing to do with us either … after all, they happened in the past as well.

The point about the current changes in climate is not the degree of change but the speed with which it is happening. By the time we decide that the ostrich types, with their heads in the sand pretending it isn't happening, are wrong it will be too damn late to do anything about it.

Look carefully at who writes the reports that say it isn't happening and on what data they base their conclusions, you will find a considerable number have an interest in or a connection to a polluting industry or a political axe to grind.

Reducing polluting emissions will have some economic effects in the short term but, other than that, it can't do any harm. If we really are heading for meltdown and we don't do anything then we're f---ed.

Which scenario do you think makes logical sense ? Action or inaction ?

Tony H

PS Set to be the warmest winter on record here in the UK too, for the 3rd year running !!!

QUICK!! Someone fetch Al Gore. I think he was coding for I2.

Only he can save us!!

EXCELLSIOR!!!

All rise….the church of Global Warming is back in session.

Gildas…what you have to also realize (and remember if you were alive in the 70's) is that when "Earth Day", started the big fear back then was of "Global Cooling". Supposedly we were affecting the planet in such a way that by the year 2000 we would be in a new ice age…
Well…guess what?

uh huh…

Anyone that can read long term planetary geological records and climate studies in Environmental Science will tell you that what is happening to our planet is part of a natural process. They had the "Years without a summer" in the 1300's…minor decade of "Extreme Warmth" in the 1800's…
The planet goes through cycles of warming and cooling. If you think that we as people in our auuuuuuuuuuuuuutomobiles are responsible for global warming/cooling, or whatever you think it is this decade then you have fallen for the Al Gore Hype.

As the old saying goes. "When you are cold, hungry, naked, and living in a cave, thank an environmentalist"…

If we insist it isn't happening and mock those who say it is loudly enough, then maybe it really isn't happening!

We've had some success here in the US using this method to fight the heresy of Evolution. It seems to work even better against Global Warming.

Yep, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink as the saying goes. I agree with your statements Brett. As usual the ones who do not want to see the evidence and admit we might have a chance of at least slowing down the process will remain thirsty.

Before you can slow down the process, you have to
A: Find out if the process actually exists and if so have enough data to show that we have affected it.

B: Secondly, do you think that we are powerful enough to change the entire plantetological climatology of this planet?…wow…we are GODS!

C: If we have done such horrible damage to our big blue marble….ummm…what makes you think we have a chance of "fixing it"?

We're doomed I tell you!

Warm winters and cool summers have been proposed as signs of being in an Ice Age – some clever 'scientists' (I haven't seen their degrees) claim to have drived this interesting info from sediment cores.

Its a good bit smarter to say 'Hey Guys! We're going to run out of Oil and Coal in a generation or two – wouldn't it be a good idea to make it last a bit longer so we can get alternatives on-line before then' than to stand around argueing about whether the data points to warming or cooling. Your great-unteen-kids may curse you when a bear kicks them out of their cave.

Murphy, not only was I alive in the 1970's but already a qualified Physicist. The 'Global Cooling' idea was actually a spin-off from an early 'Whole Earth' study of climatic change and was one of a number of possible scenarios. Many of their predictions have actually been proved correct in essence but not always in scale. This isn't really surprising as they were using comparatively crude modelling techniques.

I take no notice of politicians in this debate, they are generally untrustworthy know-nothings, I look at the science and I'm convinced. Unfortunately politicians have the power and big companies have them in their pockets in one way or another. Voters are another factor in the equation and they are so used to being lied to that they neither know nor care what the truth is.

Tony H

Coolest summer here in Brisbane in 150 years: we're in the sub-tropics & there's been days when coats were needed.
Something screwy is certainly happening.
donald

We have had warmer than average temperatures in January and the highest averages since 1880 (must've been more global warming back then)

So all the news is now about global warming. Pity nobody remembers the snow we got in SEPTEMBER of last year which I talked about on this very board along with a prediction that it would likely be warm later in the winter. LO AND BEHOLD my prediction came true: the Global Warming chicken littles forgot that fall was colder than normal and are now claiming a warm January is a sign of the apocalypse.

The problem is that people, even politicians, start believing the global warming myth and do stupid things like say Polar Bears are endangered while ignoring the fact that we have more polar bears now than any other time in the last 50 years.

Why are polar bears endagered? Because of global warming.
How do we know there is global warming? Because its making the polar bear endangered!

Yeah, right.

While I was still in LA, they got a slight dusting in Pasadena/La Canada and that's just a stone's throw from downtown.

We at one time lived in Glendora and had a picture window looking up. I always loved that view.

I'm with you. I like to watch it come down, but the sooner it melts the better.

JW

None of this has anything to do with signs of global warming. The fact that it's warmer in Sheboygan, or colder in Tuscaloosa this year has nothing to do with it. You need to look at trends over many years, perhaps tens of thousands of years.

And most of the arguments against it that I see here are the usual canned responses from cherry-picked research presented by lobbiest opponents, like the oil, auto, and tobacco companies (more on that later).

Here are a couple of facts.

-An increase of CO2 in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse affect which raises climate temperatures.

-Core samples taken from the ice caps show that the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased precipitously over the last two-hundred years, and astronomically over the last 50. The cores go back over a million years, and there has been nothing like this kind of increase in that entire period.

-One indicator of climate change is the temperature of the oceans. Since this data has been collected ocean temps have been gradually increasing. One consequence is the increase of the power of hurricanes. The data shows that hurricanes have also been increasing in their intensity over time.

I don't believe that one can say that humans are causing or even contributing to global warming with absolute certainty. But the preponderance of scholarly research is uncovering more than enough evidence to indict. If I had to make an analogy I'd say that global warming is more certain than O.J.'s guilt.

Remember my reference to the tobacco companies? They fund selected research and researchers that publish ambiguous results on global warming. The "findings" are used by the oil and auto lobbies to refute mainstream research and cast doubt on global warming. A favor to big oil and auto from the tobacco industry. Nobody would believe it if this research was funded by the oil companies, right?

In return, the oil companies have frequently backed similar research that implies less direct cause and affect between tobacco and what we commonly know to be tobacco related illnesses. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

This cooked data is snatched up by lobbiests and politicians and given far more exposure and credence than it should in order to protect the private, and well funded special interests.

If the real facts and data refute claims of global warming, then why do the oil (and coal) and auto industries need to get the tobacco industry to schill hokey research to make their case?

So, if you haven't read enough science to believe that there could be something to this global warming thing, then maybe the fact that some very rich and powerful people are paying a lot of money to confuse us about it should be a red flag.

Whenever this topic comes up on CA I always say the following:

Name one climatologist not funded by the oil industry who believes anthropomorphic global climate change isn't happening.

The science is there, all peer-reviewe dand everything. The reason why Americans (and it is nearly always Americans) don't wish to face up to facts is because they're scared they may have to change their ways.

The engineering solutions are also there. The worldwide demand for electricty could be supplied by using Concentrated Solar Power stations covering 3% of the world's deserts. There's a plant in Nevada thats been working for years.

Those who don't want to become part of the solution will find their economies suffering and those with the know-how make the money. It happened to the UK at the end of the 19th century and it'll happen to the US now.

Just because the media, who know very little, call something 'global warming' doesn't mean the sicentists do. It will be, as noted, climate change caused by extra energy in the system.

Be very wary of any focus group coming of of the USA – Exxon funds dozens of dodgy groups telling people we needn't worry (in contrast to BP and Shell incidentlaly). Be equally wary of press statements from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth who are equally flaky with the science when pressing home their agendas.

Just so people know my particular prejudices – I'm an ecologist who occasionally works for the wind-energy industry.

BTW: For red flags, there was a summit this week with British Telecom, British Airways and Tesco (amongst others) deciding how to tackle this problem. Given the combined turnover of these corporations is £58bn (roughly $110billion) per year, it shows that serious people take this issue seriously.

Oh, and for all of you trying to decide change is or isn't happening due to conditions outside, look up the difference between weather and climate.

>Be equally wary of press statements from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth who are equally flaky with the science when pressing home their agendas.

Bangorstu, thank you for acknowledging that the "global warming" (inverted commas mine) faction has a political agenda as well. So often we hear that all opposition to the theory is funded by Big Oil (or on this thread, Big Tobacco) with the implication that global warming enthusiasts are purely scientifically and philanthropically motivated. However the fact is that theirs is an "industry" as well, with a vested interest in propagating their theory.

Cheers

w.

The difference being Global Climate Change is happening, and it's us that's doing it.

No agenda behind the scientists ringing the warning bell.

But any organisation that makes its money from membership will occasionally try to grab the media's attention.

But, purer motives than Exxons' who can't see why trashing the planet and killing people is any reason not to continue making money.

Incidentally, virtually all opposition IS funded by Big Oil, or at least the American bit of it. BP in particular spends a lot of money on renewables, which are the technology of the future.

A technology the US lags behind in.

Hi

Stu…. Scientific American is very "global warming" advocate.

Unfortuantley: The sept. 2006 special edition on human evolution has a lovly graph showing how climate change drove human evolution.

Page 87 Graph, Shows a huge spike 120,000 years ago, 20,000 years much much hotter than today.

Even better, the graph on the current "interglacial" shows a peak 9000 years ago hotter than today and shows the current "spike" less than recent ones in historical times.

Weather is not climate, thus snowing in So.Cal. isn't the point. But saying "hottest year on record" isn' relevent either. "Records" have only been kept for the last 150 year or so.

What you can observe is this, what happened. Stockholm 1000 years ago had a vibrant Wheat based economy, as did Greenland. I haven't looked at sweaden, but it is still not warm enough, long enough in Greenland to grow wheat and Barley as a feasable subsistance crop.

Sea levels have been as much as 20m lower, and 10 higher without the industrial revolution having happened. It is difficult to isolate the variables when the only one you "measure" is the existance of man.

But there is a thought, why is the "fix" to return to the conditions of the Little Ice Age from 1385 to 1750? Which part of "little Ice Age" is misunderstood or desirable?

Rocky

Ah…but then we have things like dendrochronology, tree ring data, ice cores etc which goes back thousands of years.

Oh, and temperatures were indeed 1-2 degrees higher about a thousand years ago. If we're not careful we're looking at a lot more than that. 2 degrees is about the best case scenario right now.

Climatologists don't just take on one variable. But man is the bug in the machine and is currently the one causing the problems. Other things may too, but not right now. Oddly enough it's the right now I'm interested in.

As I've said to you before, the fix is technology, not to return to a primitve state. But you appear incapable of taking that on board.

What some people fail to realize though is that many people do not care one way or the other. Change happens (man-made and natural) and in order to survive people, animal, plants must adapt or die. The world will not be destroyed by climate change. It will simply be different. Many extinctions have occured in the history of our planet. those that adapted are still around and those that are not are gone. So who gives a rats behind how it is caused…just adapt and shut up about it already.

I like to indulge myself in the "conceit" that wargamers as a group, on average, are well-read and perhaps a little better-informed than the public at large (on many things, not necessarily just our "buttons-and-lace" specialties).

And then a discussion like this comes along…

Denying the science behind the warnings about drastic climate changes (i.e. "global warming")???? On the basis of what realistic, peer-reviewed non-corporate-agenda-driven "scientific" studies????

It saddens me to see people play petty politics with the future of the world.

Oh yes,….but please do not…do NOT forget that in the 1960's "wacky weather" was blamed on the US and USSR putting stuff on the moon!

Heck…look at the old movie "The Atomic Cafe", and you see the clip about the guy talking about how "All them Atomic Bombs have changed the weather…"

Hmm.. I hate to point this out to certain, aged gamers, but that was the better part of half a century ago.

These days we don't believe that regular bleedings improve health, skin colour affects intelligence or indeed that smoking is good for your lungs.

Science moves on. At least on this side of the Atlantic.

It would be nice to see a real debate on the topic without the name calling.
I have worked in science and I KNOW that the purpose of science is to prove your grant proposal.
The politically correct findings these days favor "anthro(pro?)genic climatolgical discombobulation", while the oil companies fund "What, me?" solutions.

Belief in Global Whatever is as ingrained as the Trinity is to Roman Catholics. Not to say that it is wrong, but dissent is not tolerated. It is as if your immortal soul is in danger for even doubting the Orthodoxy.
Excuse me if I smile with irony at those who are so damn certain.

So far this winter, my oil tank has been virtually untouched, and that does not bother me at all.

Excuse me if I smile with irony at those who are so damn certain.

On both sides of the argument, even. Irony indeed.

Hi Wyatt,

Yes, I read the CA state warning, which sounded like we were going to get "The Day After Tomorrow" and instead it's right pleasant.

Speaking of Global Warming, that reminds me of Al Gore…

*** Anyone know that he ahs his own TV station now called Connect TV? ***

I only know because the other day ago, they were doing "interviews on the street" and they asked me to interview and my friend and I agreed…

It was pretty juvenile… very leading questions about prop 87, mental healthcare and… the kicker:

"Would you rather see mental healthcare reform or girls gone wild? ***

I'm not kidding… they really asked that!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Hi

Comon stu. I never said that the solution was "stay home and freeze in the dark", I am saying that this is the proposal by the people USING global warming for to promote their ideas.

Curiously, as I was reading your reasoned response, and the name calling that followed it, I was listening to National Public Radio, where a guy in florida was explaining why his environemetalism was tied to his fundy christianity. He had set up the community of the future. Which included his growing his food in his "yard", not allowing stores in their town, and not driving. And the guy wasn't even Amish!

I had a vision of the rooftops of london with gardens growing food for the poor.

Anyway, as you mention, the science has improved. Unfortunately, as I keep pointing out, the science keeps improving. This is more along the lines of "crying wolf". Every decade, we are going to be DEAD in ten or twenty years. And every decade we must do radical things to peoples lifestyle. Those radical changes always involve using the governement to produce more socialism.

It is typified by one of your favorite arguments "Just why do you americans NEED your SUVs"?

I notice that politicians always seem to decide what the peasants need and it is never what "they" have. Like SUVs!

And the oddity is that we have done some radical changes to our lifestyle in response to previous crys of "we are all gonna' die". But the changes never work when the governement says so, the changes only seem to work "organically".

Last numbers were a degree this century, just three years ago, it was supposed to have been already 5. Which part was MAN?

Rocky

Hi Guys,

I have a lot of respect for Bangor Stu, but the bottom line is that we simply don't know whether climactic change AKA Global Warming is a normal or abnormal part of the world's history. What's now ocurring is definitely man-made (adding energy to the system), but we're not sure if that is simply man speeding up a natural process. Ice Ages have ocurred before and we simply don't have the hard evidence to know what it means… only conjecture and hypothesis. Personally, I think it's a good idea to be cautious, but I always get cold feet when I see anyone think it must be true because of the "evil US oil lobby."

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

Just because some nut-case listens to the argument and draws his own conclusions doesn't alter the argument.

The science does keep improving and if and when Global Climate change is disproved, I'll be as relieved as anyone. All one can ever say is that the theory fits the facts, and there's no better explanation.

Testing the planet to destruction to see if we were right is, however, not an option.

I'm still baffled by your assertion that this is method to increase socialism. Because a free market in tradeable carbon is obviously a deep red policy.

As for radical changes – how is changing to solar radical? So long as the air-con works, who cares where the juice comes from? Government policy here seems to have kick-started action, not all of it useful, but it's there.

Could you provide a link for your last assertion?

Name one climatologist not funded by the oil industry who believes anthropomorphic global climate change isn't happening.

Hmm, Dr Chris Freitas from Auckland University, NZ.

Global climate change has 4 basic uncertainties.
First- is it happening? Most scientific studies on 'climate change' identify that something is happening.

Second- what is the size and scope of the change (if it is occurring)? Projections/estimates are somewhat varied, with not all outcomes catastrophic.

Third- how much of the change is due to human activity? There is somewhat less consensus on the role of human activity at causing change. Global climate is a complex beast and difficult to model at fine levels of resolution. There are many confounding factors.

Fourth- what (if anything) can be done.

There's plenty of scope to have scientific dispute in such a setting.

Chthonic regards

B

Dr Chris de Freitas, member of Friends of Science as funded by the oil industry?

Or is their another one?

He's right in saying that warming to date is no more marked than has happened in relatively recent history. The problem being where this current warming stops….

Not all outcomes predicted are catastrophic, especially if we start to cut carbon. However, I suggest given the lack of any alternative planet, perhaps this is a time when the precautionary principle might be worth using.

What some people fail to realize though is that many people do not care one way or the other. Change happens (man-made and natural) and in order to survive people, animal, plants must adapt or die. The world will not be destroyed by climate change. It will simply be different. Many extinctions have occured in the history of our planet. those that adapted are still around and those that are not are gone. So who gives a rats behind how it is caused…just adapt and shut up about it already.

Remind me not to throw you a lifeline if I happen to see you drowning … I'll just watch you adapt to breathing water.