We just had the latest ice - out date on record for barge traffic on the mississippi river, this is warming??

Question

The old record was April 7th, the ice was finally clear on the upper mississippi to the twin cities on April 12th this year. ( clear enough for a barge to get through anyway )

Answer 1

Weather = short-term temperature/precipitation conditions

Climate = the long-term (e.g. 30 year) average of weather

And the climate is changing for the warmer. You're simply seeing the end of a cold winter caused by la nina.

No single weather event has any relevance for the topic of global warming. That's a climate change trend, not a weather event.

Answer 2

Our planet depends on a greenhouse effect to keep us warm.  We've always had greenhouse warming and hopefully always will.  Water vapor is a key contributor to this warming.  We've had a relatively stable balance of greenhouse gases for at least 10,000 years since the last ice age.

Consensus is that in the past 250 years, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we've set things out of balance.  By creating a new source of greenhouse gases - by burning fossil fuels - and destroying existing sinks for these gases - by deforestation.   As a result of this imbalance, we've seen an increase in temperature.

Interestingly, the increase in temperature allows the atmosphere to store more water vapor which further accelerates the warming - a postive feedback loop.

Answer 3

evans_...,

Your post seems slightly peculiar. Perhaps it was tongue-in-cheek? By that logic, no local weather (like heat waves, droughts, floods, etc.) could be blamed on global warming--its all local (which I pretty much agree with). And that there is no warming at all--all stations are made up of individual locations. And that there can never be a trend in climate--every year is an individual year.

Does that sound right?

Edit:

I must agree. Its funny how those like Bob (not me, the bob above) wish to explain any cooling as nothing, and yet they choose to use instances like the heat wave in Europe as proof of the "ever increasing dangers of AGW" (It has been shown that the heat wave was likely a result of factors other than a rising global temperature trend). Noise is noise, no matter how good it sounds.

Sysengineer67,

The past 250 years? Are you sure about that?

Answer 4

My  Dad is 83 and he can remember being on the street in central W.Va. Dec. 7 The day of Pearl Harbor and it was 73 degrees,so what was it called then,oh that's right it was just called weather,no one stupid enough to believe global warming back then.

Answer 5

dont be ignorant now

Answer 6

People should remember that global warming is global, not  only local. Just because it is colder then normal in your location one year does not mean that on a whole, the planet is not getting warmer.

Answer 7

Local weather doesn't count...single years don't count.  So what if averages are comprised of individual locations and individual years.  So what if record cold is being reported all over the globe...they're all individual locations.  So what if each year since 1998 has failed to set a new global high.  They're all individual years.  

"The lie is love.  Love the lie!" - Homer Simpson

Edit (bob326 below):  I was merely agreeing with the proponent answers above mine...if you accept their argument any local phenom doesn't matter, you'll buy man-made global warming through the next Ice Age.  Trust those who wish to control you over your own observations, that's the key!

Answer 8

I think that it is funny that there are so many people who believe we can continually dump pollutants into the environment and face no negative repurcussions.  I would say what incredible arrogance and ignorance operating at once, but I think the real issue is fear.

They know the science is there and they know the reality of the wacky weather.  Fear drives them to deny.  If we pretend the problem is not there, it will not be there.  It is a pyschological trick of the mind for those who lack courage to face the truth and make effort to deal with the problem.  Unfortunately, the truth will continue to present itself and these people will seem more and more not just ridiculous, but immoral, for their denials.

The science of global climate change (which is not a new name for it) is the warming is an average of the earth's temperature.  Overall, things are warmer.  However, it also entails longer, hotter summers and longer, colder winters -- it entails temperature extremes -- and shorter and shorter springs and falls so that the weather changes between hot and cold are quite abrupt with more severe storms as well.  

Also, weather patterns change so that some places experience warmer winters and cooler summers, but again, it's the earth average that makes it an overall warming trend.  But a few warmer winters may only be a precursor to a coming cold plunge.  It's complicated how the weather system works, but there are plenty of books and I am sure Internet sources available to explain the science of this.

All of these things have been predicted in the science of global climate change for many years and the reality is now playing out and will continue to do so no matter how many people choose for political-economic and self-interested reasons to bury their heads in the sand.

Answer 9

Global warming and it’s new ‘catch-all’ moniker of Climate Change is a hoax. It is nothing more than a scare tactic to get the world and specifically the USA to sign the Kyoto Protocals and other soveriegnty ending traitor-treaties by the Communist pushers of one world government.

The hoax has been exposed but like all good Commies, they will blather on endlessly about it pretending all the while that the emergency really exists and that only they can fix things….by the rest of us submitting to their benevolent rule of course.

Environmentalists are the stooges of the Communists.

Answer 10

I was pretty frustrated with how late it stopped snowing up here (I live near the Twin Cities). I don't know what the deal is with the warming, really, and I wouldn't just jump to conclusions about what this means scientifically- having snow in mid-April, which is not normal- but I'll continue with what I've been saying: This global warming has not been helping us Minnesotans one bit.

Answer 11

In Michigan, we had snow this morning.

One would think that with GW, snow would be a thing of the past.

What would BOB do without his copy&paste buttons ?

Answer 12

My father is going on 87 now, and in the 1940's, in the Seattle area they had a blizzard with 6 foot drifts in early May!

This was caused by a freak weather condition.

Today this type of occurrence would be blamed on 'global warming'!

Back then it was called weather.

I would like to give some really 'Inconvenient Truths' which will be completely ignored by the believers in 'AGW', because it is information which is based on science and facts, and would be incapable for them to comprehend in the first place.

All weights are in imperial measurements.

1) The earth's atmosphere weighs 5.7 quadrillion tons.

(5,700,000,000,000,000)

2) The weight of atmospheric CO2 is approximately 2.166 trillion tons.

(2,166,000,000,000)

3) According to latest available statistics,(2005), mankind was responsible for producing 31billion tons of CO2.

(31,012,300,000)

Even if CO2 were a 'greenhouse gas' (which it is not), the percentages speak for themselves.

Although all figures have been rounded off for simplicity, the relations are intact.

If we were going to seriously consider carbon dioxide as a so-called 'greenhouse gas', then we should not only identify it's impact by concentration levels, but also consider mankind's contribution to the impact!

The figures speak for themselves.

Mankind's contribution is .014% of .038%, making human activity accounting for, get this,0.000005%!

I would appreciate anyone who may be able to prove me wrong with my figures.

After all I am human and capable of making mistakes!

The statistics I used for man's CO2 production came from:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/internationa...

The other figures came from several text books that I have, but you can easily verify by doing a web search.

Answer 13

Just one below average winter, which doesn't mean a thing.  It happened in 1982, 1991-1992, 1999-2000.  EVERY TIME global warming came back stronger than ever.  Proof.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

discussed in detail, with confirmation, at:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/g...

As long as we keep making greenhouse gases in enormous amounts, global warming will dominate in the long run.  It's simple physics.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/di...

Answer 14

Global warming hysteriacs trumped by physics

The climate forces which have led to the estimated 0.6C degree temperature increase over the past 100 years or more (according to the International Panel on Climate Change) have been assumed to be man-made CO2 emissions from advanced nations including the U.S. We know this can’t be true for several reasons.

The first is that water vapor provides 95 percent of the total of the greenhouse gases, not CO2. The total of the CO2 represents less than 3 percent of the total. The second is that of the total atmospheric CO2 inventory, the manmade fraction is less than 3 percent of the CO2 total and therefore far less than 1 percent of the total greenhouse gas inventories. Third, studies of the recent climate variations are finding, for example, (See article by J. Oestermans, Science, p. 375, April 29, 2005) that glaciers have been receding since 1750 or so, well before any significant man-made CO2 emissions occurred.

The mid 1700s were at the very depths of the Little Ice Age, which we have learned was the coldest climate over the last 5000 years. Obviously, other warming forces were at work before humans had anything to do with it.