Global Warming question - recent cold temps and basic truth?

Question

Ok, this is not meant to get everyone upset or type stupid/sarcastic comments that do not help or answer my question.

I just REALLY want to know what you STRONGLY believe and what's true.

A couple years ago (maybe like 5 or 6), I had NO idea what Global Warming was, which was probably because I was too young to understand and everything in the world seemed fine and wonderful.

But then, I heard people talking about it and eventually, about 2 or 3 years ago, I saw part of the movie "The day after Tomorrow" which was about global warming and climate change. I know that this movie is just that, a MOVIE. But ever since then I have been scared and worried about the environment and what is going to happen in the future.

So I just want to know:

- The founder of the weather channel suing Al Gore? Is he right?

- I think that this year, we've had a cold and snowy winter much more than usual?

- Is global warming all that Al Gore may say?? Or something to watch out for but not die from?

Answer 1

It's incredible to see how many people ignore the hard scientific truth that humans are affecting today's climate.  How could we possibly not?   If you think about it, it's logical that we would.  Carbon dioxide (CO2), is a greenhouse gas.  We emit large amounts of CO2 through the burning of fossil fuels (gasoline, coal to run our power plants, etc.).  There has never been a species on earth that contributed the vast amounts of CO2 that we are adding to the atmosphere.  The added greenhouse gasses contribute to the warming of the planet. I'm certainly not saying that the earth's climate doesn't have fluctuations, as science clearly states that it does. Perhaps we are in a natural warming trend right now, which I tend to believe.  But there is no doubt in my mind that humans are accelerating this trend to a degree never before seen in history.  I feel that we are causing a rate of acceleration in temperature that the earth cannot correct itself, like it has done in the past.  We are adjusting the natural balance, and it's a situation where if you push too far, you reach a point of no return and it becomes a vicious loop where it only gets worse and worse.  Humans, and their use of fossil fuels, are having a detrimental affect on the climate.

Answer 2

Gore just wants you and I to stop buying stuff from companies that ruin the environment.

Guess that hit them where it hurts!

Answer 3

First of all, do not be worried about the climate. It will do what ever it wants to regardless of what we do. It has done so in the past, and will do so in the future.

I do not believe the founder is suing Al Gore. He mentioned it during a speech he was giving. Saying something and doing are 2 different things.

No one can say whether this years weather is the start of colder weather or a break in the warmer climate. Let's hope it is only a short break. However, the sun is very inactive right now which is probably why it is colder. If the sun does not enter its 24th cycle soon, then we can expect continued cold (this is not good).

As for global warming, it is true the earth is warming. It is a complete lie that we are the cause. There is no scientific evidence that we are the cause or even significantly contributing to warming. The global warming topic has now become a political issue, not scientific. Whatever you hear on TV these days is probably either not true, or embellished to make it appear worse.

Enjoy global warming, for when the climate is warmer, humans and all life forms on earth have flourished. Things get bad when we enter a cold spell, similar to the mini ice age which just ended in the late 1800's.

Answer 4

I think I can answer the second and third question... I'm sorry if i can't answer the other.  I have watched the whole The Day After Tomorrow movie... a bit boring, but kept you interested...

Now to the answer...

Some years are very different, some are extremely hot... (one year i believe the high near NY was 105) and some are cooler, like this year.

Probably should watch out for Global Warming, and if we really don't slow it down, we probably will die sooner than we all expected.

Answer 5

Now you have seen and felt what Elitist Establishmentarian

Socialist Prpoaganda can do to your thought processes.

     'Ignorance' of the populace is the Lifeblood of Tyranny.

      History.....

     The Earth has been warming since the end of the

LAST ice-age. Some 12 to 15,000 years ago.

     True , pollution may exacerbate the situation.......

Still if you think mankind can stop the processess of

The Milky Way Galaxy in unision with our Solar System.

     You have high hopes built upon wishful thinking.

     The "Earth is Warming" spiel is pure international

power - brokering of the highest order.

     Taking full advantage of a natural phenomenon and

the gullibility of the masses.....

Answer 6

Here's the balance of the science:

http://norvig.com/oreskes.html

The consensus was quantified in a Science study by Prof. Naomi Oreskes (Dec. 2004) in which she surveyed 928 scientific journal articles that matched the search [global climate change] at the ISI Web of Science. Of these, according to Oreskes, 75% agreed with the consensus view (either implicitly or explicitly), 25% took no stand one way or the other, and none rejected the consensus.

So the former Weather Channel guy Coleman makes a nutty comment that Al Gore should be sued... so what?  Neither he nor Al Gore are climatologists.  He can say what he wants; that doesn't make his comments worth anything.

As for the recent cold weather, one month of cold weather is irrelevant to the longer term trend of climate change:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2...

More:

Can the Warming of the 20th Century be Explained by Natural Variability?

http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/ar4/wg1/faq/ar...

"It is very unlikely that the 20th-century warming can be explained by natural causes. The late 20th century has been unusually warm. Palaeoclimatic reconstructions show that the second half of the 20th century was likely the warmest 50-year period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1300 years. This rapid warming is consistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to a rapid increase in greenhouse gases like that which has occurred over the past century, and the warming is inconsistent with the scientific understanding of how the climate should respond to natural external factors such as variability in solar output and volcanic activity. Climate models provide a suitable tool to study the various influences on the Earth’s climate. When the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases are included in the models, as well as natural external factors, the models produce good simulations of the warming that has occurred over the past century. The models fail to reproduce the observed warming when run using only natural factors. When human factors are included, the models also simulate a geographic pattern of temperature change around the globe similar to that which has occurred in recent decades. This spatial pattern, which has features such as a greater warming at high northern latitudes, differs from the most important patterns of natural climate variability that are associated with internal climate processes, such as El Niño."

Answer 7

What I honestly believe?

That we're repeating the MWP.

Why?

Because so far we've tracked almost identically with it.

Answer 8

Here is the latest on Global Warming from a large group of scientists in New York last week:

Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change

"Global warming" is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognising that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems.

Answer 9

The Weather Channel Guy has been doing that for a long time. He is right along with the other 19,000 scientists who petitioned against the manmade global warming hype.

Answer 10

The media like to go for the big story, a bit like the movie you mentioned. On the other hand scientists like to have evidence and still they will go with low figures, an example would be the last three IPCC reports they made prediction on the available evidence at the time and each time they have under estimated the level of change. That said we are talking about tiny amounts of change over a long(for us) period, this is what scientist are trying to get out there

Day after Tomorrow wouldn't have been very exciting if the sea had risen by 1-2in's per decade or if the average temp had gone up 2deg c over a century.

The denier movement are criticized for spouting rubbish "and they do" but some comments from the other side are also untrue this isn't the end of the world, animals of the world are very adaptable and we are probable the most adaptable.

On Al Gore being sued, it won't happen, because a court of law isn't a blog site or news group, they only accept evidence not hearsay which is most of the denier case and regardless of what is posted here science has the evidence that GW is happening and is caused by us.

Yes we have had a cold winter and there have been several questions suggesting it is global cooling, one used the link below which has a number of graphs the first looks bad but only shows 1988 to present, the second starts in 1880 to present and shows there have been ~8 periods colder than this winter, guess which one started to appear on denier blogs.

Some things in the Gore documentary were no explained properly this was the basis of the U.K. legal case and example would be the images of sea rise of several meters it wasn't explained this was the IPCC longer term prediction of ~200 years (it's in the appendix of the report)

Answer 11

well it kinda depends on what you belivie cuz i belive that al gore is right about global warming

Answer 12

ok well during an ice age it eventually warmed up and melted al the ice right?? well during the next ice age it froze again?? right and soo on... but i think it has been much colder this year than most soo baisicall i think that the climate is always changing ....weather its going up or down ...soo i dont think we have to worry about it!! and even if we did i think it would be sooo long from now that we dont have to worry cus it prolly wont be in our lifetimes!

Answer 13

Don't worry about "The day after Tomorrow" and "An Inconvenient Truth" any more than you do any other horror flick.  They are all just trying to scare you.

A 15 year old high school student did a nice job of evaluating the arguments that man is causing global warming.  Her work is a very nice read.