Is global warming...?

Question

A change in climate or an increase in climate temperature? So many people point to record cold winters as proof that global warming doesn't exist, but aren't extreme winters also caused by global warming?

Answer 1

Its warming the earth

Answer 2

what people are saying is that global warming doesn't excist because of how cold it has been geting. but they are talking about weather, not climate. and yes extreme winters are a cause. the ice capes are melting, so all the cold air comes south. that is basicly why it has been so cold lately.

Answer 3

The IPCC says temps have risen 0.8 C in one hundred years as a global average.    Temps have risen quite a bit more in the Arctic, enough to melt ice caps and glaciers.  And even the average rise in temps is enough to effect some species in dramatic ways.

This year is a La Ninja year, the opposite of El Nino.  La Ninja years are generally cooler.



Also, we are at the bottom of an eleven year solar cycle.    1998 was the opposite, the strongest El Nino in a hundred years, and near the top of the eleven year solar cycle.    

El Nino is well documented cyclical phenomenon, where warmer than usual water, in the south pacific ocean, changes wind and current patterns, disrupting normal weather and generally creating warmer conditions in many parts of the world.

We had severe ones in 1982-83 and 1997-98.

The waters off the coast of California, for instance, were much warmer than usual.  Many native fish, like salmon went elsewhere and fish from warmer waters moved north to the Cal. coast.

Our winters are wetter than normal in El Nino years.  New England experinced dryer warmer winters those same years.

This goes a long way toward explaining why temps haven't seemed to warm as much in the last decade.  Using this as proof against AGW is a double cherry pick, it seems to me.  The beginning and the end both being marked by extremes, due to well know phenomena, that operate in well know cycles.  Still, 2005 is said to have been warmer than 1998.

And you are talking about weather, not climate.

When scientists use the term climate, they mean at least 30 years.

"The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time is just weather, and says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change."

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10...

One answer here calls global warming a farce.

(no sources)  What's a farce is the suppression of the scientific evidence engaged in by the Bush administration.  For a detailed account of this, read the new book  "Censoring Science", the political attack and censoring of leading climate scientist Jim Hansen by the administration.

A real eye opener.  In fact, one of the things they were censoring, was the report on 2005 world temps.  

Yes, global warming will have different effects on weather and climate in different parts of the world.   It's not as simple as just warmer temperatures.  

The scientific method requires that theories are given scrutiny by other scientists to validify the theory.  This is called peer review.  

The AGW theory as reported on by the IPCC has been called the most thoroughly peer reviewed scientific paper in history.

There were over 900 peer reviewed papers on climate change.  None opposed the conclusions of the IPCC.

That's about as much confirmation as you will find in science.

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics".

  Dr. James Baker - National Oceanic and       Atmospheric Administration    

I think that's a typo and should read thermodynamics.

"It's easy to refute all the contrarian arguments but that seems to have very little effect on how commonly they are believed. Refuted arguments seem to live on in the public imagination."

Michael Tobis Ph.D. - University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

"A handful of "contrarian" scientists and public figures who are not scientists have challenged mainstream climatologists' conclusions that the warming of the last few decades has been extraordinary and that at least part of this warming has been anthropogenically induced. What must be emphasized here is that, despite the length of this section, there are truly only a handful of climatologist contrarians relative to the number of mainstream climatologists out there."

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/...

Great site showing overwhelming support for IPCC findings.

Answer 4

i hear that extreme winters (like the one wisconsin just had) was caused by global warming too. idk.

Answer 5

They use rising global temperature averages as proof of global warming.   Remember, most people trying to prove global warming are doing it for political reasons...not for scientific reasons.

The planet has gone to extreme temperatures many times throughout it's existence, no doubt taking thousands of years to heat up and cool down.

Answer 6

Lets talk about currents for a second. Currents of the Ocean change the weather, but clearly stuff is melting. But what peopel fail to consider is that the world will heat up and cool down as always. It was an ice age then it was a  desert then it was moderate then it was hot then it was an ice age again. The earth will take its course. But if we don't preserve the ozone and the atmosphere not to mention our wildlife and overall health of the world and the oceans we swim in and the air we breath soon we will be in danger. The earth may get hot, but that is a slow process...if it floods we move, but what if all our world is a landfill, or parched unfertile desert regions. People talk about Global Warming, but if you can't get people to believe it, then at least tell them they need to better the environment they live it. Which like it or not is the very common goal that we all should go for, regardless of wether we believe in Global Warming or not.

Answer 7

I believe global warming is a "change in climate". Because the polar caps have been melting because of unusually high temperatures. Also in December and January in my area we usually see temperatures in the teens, but now they haven't even gone down below 30 degrees. But there were also very harsh winters for some people.

Answer 8

global *warming* means the earth is *warming* globally

Answer 9

Global Warming is...farce.

Answer 10

When a scientist, or someone who understands the subject, uses the term 'global warming', they mean the recent warming of the globe which has been accelerated by humans (greenhouse gases).

They know that climate has been changing for billions of years, and is has been warmer before, but never before have humans been added to the equation in such a way than they have now.

The effect that scientists are predicting is described best as 'climate change', or 'climate destabilisation'. Although the average temperature trend is predicted to increase, it'll make some places colder by effecting things such as ocean currents (which will be potentially stopped if too much ice melts into the oceans)

A cold day, month, or year is insufficient to prove a trend in climate. Temperature changes naturally whether we like it or not. To get the whole picture, you need to look at a good number of years.

It is well accepted that, should climate change occur, it will bring about more 'opposites' in climate, in other words it will be less predictable.

There has been a great deal of scientific support into the human-induced warming theory, and there has also been quite a few scientists who say there is no positive link between carbon dioxide and temperature. Even though the climate has changed a lot in the past, its us that we should be worrying about, not the planet. We need to be able to cope with global warming or cooling alike, and changing the composition of the atmosphere doesn't really seem a good thing.