This is why it is cold

[vern]

Any one who doubts that the deforestation of the North American continent, the massacre of sustainable wildlife populations for political ends, the import of millions of European people flooding the country side, the rerouting of rivers (basin rerouting, and massive changes in groundwater stores and discharges), the changing of mountain ranges and valleys, and plains and uplands, the introduction of thousands of invasive species, diseases, etc., has had a severe negative effect on the stability of the North American climate, you are lacking the prerequisites to understanding the significance of what Global Warming indicates.

The self-indulgance of such trivialities as personal politics and maybe-it-will-be-okay after all handwringing/apathies aside, there is no species that can continue unchanged to colonize and experience rapid population growth without eventually causing severe detrimental-to-itself effects to the environmental systems that are essential to the continuation of the species.

Global warming is an indicator that such a dramatic event is likely. The nature of the specific event will not be known until it is experienced.

The rise and fall of populations and the give-and-take on the environment is an expected dynamic. It will happen.

There are a number of possible outcomes, ranging from disease (likely) to specialization within the species so that one becomes a predator and the other is prey. Most likely is multiple outcomes negatively affecting the human population.

Nature doesn't need approval for appropriateness or righteousness of outcomes for the outcomes to be more or less likely.

This is a fundemental law of life, as solid as the laws of physics, and beyond the capacity of number crunchers, even armed with the strongest computers (sans brains) to conceptualize much less deliver any meaningful modelling by which to take action.

If we as a people intend to continue good things in our environment then we need to assess what makes for a good environment for those things and take action.

Personally, I don't have much hope that we have not exceeded the human carrying capacity of the planet to provide the buffer of environmental forgiveness that allows ignorance, greed and apathy to be so common.

The system will correct itself.

 

[flyfishermanj]

Any one who doubts that the deforestation of the North American continent, the massacre of sustainable wildlife populations for political ends, the import of millions of European people flooding the country side, the rerouting of rivers (basin rerouting, and massive changes in groundwater stores and discharges), the changing of mountain ranges and valleys, and plains and uplands, the introduction of thousands of invasive species, diseases, etc., has had a severe negative effect on the stability of the North American climate, you are lacking the prerequisites to understanding the significance of what Global Warming indicates.

The self-indulgance of such trivialities as personal politics and maybe-it-will-be-okay after all handwringing/apathies aside, there is no species that can continue unchanged to colonize and experience rapid population growth without eventually causing severe detrimental-to-itself effects to the environmental systems that are essential to the continuation of the species.

Global warming is an indicator that such a dramatic event is likely. The nature of the specific event will not be known until it is experienced.

The rise and fall of populations and the give-and-take on the environment is an expected dynamic. It will happen.

There are a number of possible outcomes, ranging from disease (likely) to specialization within the species so that one becomes a predator and the other is prey. Most likely is multiple outcomes negatively affecting the human population.

Nature doesn't need approval for appropriateness or righteousness of outcomes for the outcomes to be more or less likely.

This is a fundemental law of life, as solid as the laws of physics, and beyond the capacity of number crunchers, even armed with the strongest computers (sans brains) to conceptualize much less deliver any meaningful modelling by which to take action.

If we as a people intend to continue good things in our environment then we need to assess what makes for a good environment for those things and take action.

Personally, I don't have much hope that we have not exceeded the human carrying capacity of the planet to provide the buffer of environmental forgiveness that allows ignorance, greed and apathy to be so common.

The system will correct itself.

Well said!!! Thank You!

JH

 

[tomgamber]

23 degrees above normal and 80's for the next 4 days...anyone check the calendar?

But if it snows in October at 5000ft in elevation in Idaho my newspaper's editorial page claims that it proves the earth is cooling and not warming...

 

[vern]

Isn't that the truth!

I try to explain it to my wife this way:
When you mix warm water into a glass of ice, the ice melts and the warm water begins to cool, until all the ice melts and the water cools.
But until it reaches that stage of equilibrium, there will be great differences between cold and warm as the cold moves down, and the warm moves up - great mixing and turbulance and great inconsistency in temperature - sometimes too cold and sometimes too warm.
The end result over time is warmer.

I then explain the jet stream and how - especially with a stable continental environment (pre-1850s) - the latitudinal movement of the jet stream "U" should move north and south with the changing seasons (because of the seasonal (orbital) change in the earth's axis relative to the sun.

I explain that with stable polar caps and stable environments, the jet stream will stabilize in winter and in summer and be unstable during fall and spring as it adjusts during its movement.

I regularly check the jet stream forecast prior to looking at the day's weather forecast, so I can get an idea of from where the weather making winds will be coming and the most likely areas for turbulance and precipitation causing temperature changes.

But here's a link
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL033614.shtml
to the summary of a study (I haven't read it because I haven't paid to read it) that states:


"We found that, in general, the jet streams have risen in altitude and moved poleward in both hemispheres. In the northern hemisphere, the jet stream weakened. In the southern hemisphere, the sub-tropical jet weakened, whereas the polar jet strengthened. Exceptions to this general behavior were found locally and seasonally. Further observations and analysis are needed to confidently attribute the causes of these changes to anthropogenic climate change, natural variability, or some combination of the two."

Sounds pretty much to me like warm water being added to a glass of ice. (Ice added to warm water ususally stratifies much quicker, with much less mixing and turbulance and with slower changes toward equilibrium.)

Of course, there are many factors affecting global temperature stability, and the global warming doubters are taking full advantage of the high degree of confidence science requires before the scientific community will take a position of "yes" or "no".
(Also, if it weren't science, the level of confidence implied in that summary statement wouldn't be needed to take action. If it were something as, say a conclusion on the need for laws to effect a change in social behavior, it would merely be a popularity or politically correct contest.)

What we should be countering with is a statement to the effect of "Unless something else really dramatically surprising is happening, we are undergoing global warming and the most likely cause is human manipulation/destruction of the environment."