Global Warming: Inconvenient Junk Science
September 5, 2006
75 posts
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yeah Jeff, but he still invented the internet and no one can take that away
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Doesn't our obligatory global warming debate usually begin in October? Why so early this year? Are there palm trees growing along the Potomac or something?
No, just a few palm seedlings popping up around Lost River.
Roger,
Well, what else can we do to pass the Un-Season?
I mean come on, THIS debate should carry us right into next season!
-Warren-
What is the debate? There is no longer a debate about the fact of global warming (a broad scientific consensus on this), little debate about the contribution of human activity to it (again, a broad consensus), the only remaining debate is what remedial measures to take(institute measures now or kick the can down the road and let others make the hard choices later). This administration seems to want to do the latter, other want to face up to it now. Is that the debate we are having here?
Yes, the climate is warming ( moving out of ice age ), and there's an additional man made component due mainly to production of the proverbial green house gases in industrial production ( also fact ). So what's the debate again?
While in Canada recently, I noticed a few articles in Canadian papers and publications that related to Global Warming. One article was about the North-West passage. Experts now think that, due to the rapid melting of the Polar Ice Cap, the North-West Passage, within 10 years, could be navigable during a significant part of each year. However, there's a disagreement on the legal status of these waters, Canada considers the North-West Passage to be Canadian waters and the US considers the NW Passage to be International waters.
Several Inuit villages in Northern Canada are becoming isolated because they depend on long roads that stretch across the frozen tundra. Due to Global Warming, these roads are turning into soup and goop (and not usable) during much longer periods than what had been the normal pattern.
The caribou herds are dwindling because Global Warming has interrupted their migratory patterns (the tundra perma-frost and lakes are frozen over less now). Also, a variety of insects that seem to bother the caribou have migrated North due to warmer temps.
A few other things to consider: The Winter of 2005-2006 was the WARMEST Winter on record in Canada. The Winter of 2005-2006 was the 5th warmest Winter on record in the lower 48 of the US. Many once famous glaciers are already gone or will be gone in another 10 years. Ocean levels are rising at alarming rate, which is affecting most beach areas world-wide. Corral Reefs are dying off world-wide at a very rapid pace because the water temps are rising faster than the corral can adapt. Of course, pollution probably also plays a role in this.
The only question about Global Warming is it's cause. It's it simply a natural cycle? Does human activity play a role in making the warming more accute? One thing that I'm 100% sure of, the Bush Admin. and the Right-Wing have NO intention doing anything about Global Warming; in fact, it's not even on their radar screen.
What are you talking about? That's not an open question, the data supports a man made component to warming trends. The rate of change or any specific event is open to debate. Long term trends point to a warming with various models suggesting various (poorly understood) outcomes at this time. The time lines vary of course on all this but its not like tomorrow the oceans are going to rise 2 ft, or 10 feet, or whatever. This is a long term trend, stretching out past our lifetimes.
I agree that the data supports a human component to the warming trend. However, some top scientists have recently questioned how much affect human activity has had on Global Warming. At any rate, the weather trends over the next 20 years will provide us much more data. And, by the way, NOAA's long-range weather outlook is calling for the Winter of 2006-2007 to be much milder than normal in the Mid-Atlantic. Of course, long-range weather predictions are often wrong.
Measuring the earth's albedo from space over time would settle the question once and for all, i'd think...
but its become fashionable to ignore, or make fun of the tangible issues...
You mean like how you're ignoring the article that was originally posted, or do you just mean us global warming skeptics?
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the data supports a man made component to warming trends
I have to respectfully disagree with you on that point, Kev. Many very respected climate experts (those unwilling to fall into lockstep and drink the Gore kool-aid) take the position that we simply do not know the cause of the current upward temperature trend. We know from a variety of natural observations that the planet has always shown a tendency to undergo climate swings, and many of those swings took place before man even existed. To assume that we know with any level of certainty that human activity is the cause of the current upward trend is simply premature.
I would be curious to know who these very respected climate experts are. I have searched and searched the literature and while you can find a few scientist who still question human contribution to global warming, they are the distinct minority and an ever shrinking lot. Again, there is a consensus (I did not say unanimity) in the issue, the debate is now what to do about it. So the identity of these contrary experts would help further define the debate.
That newpaper article is an opinion piece, written by a mechanical engineer, always known for their great contributions to climate science -- and associated with some type of lobbying group (it's at the bottom).
That's supposed to be good data against hard science in this area? Give me a break, I don't take any such articles seriously at all, in fact, I generally ignore them.
If I recall correctly, William Gray, one of the world's leading experts on Hurricanes and Hurricane forecasting, is now questioning some of the Global Warming theories, namely that Global Warming contributes to Hurricane activity and that human activity has increased Global Warming. As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Gray has lost a lot of credibility even though he's not associated with any political organizations. However, unlike Dr. Gray, most scientists that dispute popular Global Warming theories are on the payroll of Right-Wing organizations.
I get a real kick out of the Right-Wing crowd when it comes to Global Warming. For many years the Right-Wing DENIED that Global Warming was even occurring. And recently, they've begrudgingly RETREATED from that position and have finally started to admit that there actually is Global Warming, but they're quick to assert that human activity has nothing to do with Global Warming. The Right-Wing has NO credibility whatsoever when it comes to the issue of Global Warming! Most of their so-called "experts" are a bunch of "political hacks" and buffoons who have been "paid-off" (by the Far-Right) to DENY that human activity has anything to do with Global Warming.
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I would be curious to know who these very respected climate experts are. I have searched and searched the literature and while you can find a few scientist who still question human contribution to global warming, they are the distinct minority and an ever shrinking lot. Again, there is a consensus (I did not say unanimity) in the issue, the debate is now what to do about it. So the identity of these contrary experts would help further define the debate.
An example of a climate expert (a foremost authority on hurricanes) who is a global warming skeptic is Bill Gray of Colorado State Univ. I provide a link below to an interesting Washington Post article titled The Tempest by Joel Achenbach from Sunday, May 28, 2006 about him and a variety of renowned scientist-skeptics who think that Global Warming is a hoax. They believe that the current warming trend is due to normal cyclical climate variations and that global temperatures will eventually cool/moderate again as they did in the 1940s through 1970s. They also believe that even if the warming continues for a longer period of time there is little that man can (or should) do to reverse a process that is primarily driven by naturally occurring forces. Those who voice concerns about Global Warming are also represented in the article.
I tend to fall in the category of the skeptics, but would like to see the US become less dependent on fossil fuels for air pollution and national security reasons.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...052301305.html
oops, I was typing same time MM was posting about Gray
I appreciate a scientfic debate in this area, what gets me is the ideological hysteria that seems to come from -- well i think its on both sides conservatives and liberals. Both seem to want to use the science for their own ends, when i think we really need to just focus on the science and what we really do know, and seperate that from some of the projections which I think are less well understood or just plain made up some folks for their own agendas.
Most of the interviews I've heard with real scientists in the field come off as fairly even minded folks. They don't speak in hysterical terms, and instead talk about the concrete info we do have and where its likely to lead given our understanding of things now.
Basically then this is a complicated subject, but i don't think the science behind it should be dismissed so readily or casually by the lay public.
One thing we do understand are the greenhouse gases and the role they have played as one of the principle temperature regulators on our warm & hospitible planet earth -- and we can show how those ratios have changed over time and are related to colder and warmer time periods in the history of our planet.
And I think we know that we are producing billions of tons of these gases every year all over the globe, adding to them in the atmosphere every year in a measurable way.
We know those things at the very least.
Don't we?
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Measuring the earth's albedo from space over time would settle the question once and for all, i'd think...
but its become fashionable to ignore, or make fun of the tangible issues...
Funny you should mention. NASA did.
Turns out there is more than one climate change mechanism.
Global Dimming masking the effects of Global Warming:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
Especially interesting was the contrail study on 9/11, the contrast between the north and south Maldives, and the effect of a cooler Europe on Sahel droughts.
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In 2002, NASA launched the Aqua satellite. Onboard was a suite of instruments designed to measure the effect of dimming pollutants on the energy budget of the Earth. The observations from Aqua have enabled climate scientists to make a rough estimate of global dimming's total cooling effect on our planet.
JAMES HANSEN: Our estimate for the particle forcing is minus-one-and-a-half-watts- per-meter-squared. So that would imply a cooling of more than one degree Celsius.
NARRATOR: In other words, while the human greenhouse effect has produced 2.6 to three watts of extra energy for every square meter of the Earth, global dimming has subtracted about 1.5 watts, so, more than half the warming effect of our greenhouse emissions has been masked by the cooling effect of particle pollution.
It's deja vu all over again.. Let's please try to keep the focus of discussions on Mid-Atlantic skiing. That's what the DCSki Forums are for. There are dozens of more appropriate sites for discussing climate change.
I always hate to jump in and limit dialogue, but one of the reasons we all like the DCSki Forums so much is that the focus has always been on reasonable, on-topic discussions by reasonable people. I'm all for a healthy debate on climate change, but this is not the place for it, even though you might argue it could affect skiing. (It could affect a whole lot more than that.)
Thanks,
- Scott
I don't really agree
I agree, Kev. This has been a reasonable discussion, a stretch to relate it to MidAtlantic skiing maybe, everyone's being nice to one another tho. I think it's nice to see us coming out of the unseason fog and discuss SOMETHING. You know, 30 years ago the scierntists of the day were predicting an impending Ice Age. Just think of all the nice hills we could ski if that happened, southern exposure?? no problemo, January thaw killing the snow?? no fing way.
While i'm on the subject, What all you folks around the beltway best be concerned about this weekend- CRUSH RETURNS, hide the key to the likker cabinet & lock up u womens & children. right now I'm sober and broke but tonight i'll just be broke, over and out.
We could add whether Mount Porte Crayon should be developed or not as well as how backwards the South is (or isn't) to the discussion threads. With all three of those discussions going at once, it will make the heat from global warming seem frigid by comparison.
I prefer our discussions about beer, untopics, and other assorted mindlessness myself. I'd just like to see Scott say that beer and/or mardi gras trees have nothing to do with skiing...
And here's how we can turn this conversation into a ski-related conversation: given the imminent heat death of skiing in the Mid-Atlantic due to global warming, what are the best grass skis on the market? How about water skis? Jet skis? Those funky snowboard surf thingies?
See? Even if the world heats up 30 degrees, we'll still have DC"Ski" in a kind of loose sense of the word...
He's out of line on this one, this is a board in the public domain, and that implies a certain freedom of speech -- at least i think.
Editing "webzine" content is one thing, editing the forum another.
Rather arbitrarily stopping forum content is not the same as say editing out inappropriate adult content, etc...
No, I believe he crossed the line.
It's not really in the public domain. It's his domain, his registration, and he does have some say in the content. It's kind of like work email in some ways- you can say what you want on it but it really isn't yours.
That said, I think global warming would have an impact on snow skiing in the Mid-Atlantic (or at least warmer temperatures in this region, or something). However, it's also a contentious issue and I think Scott's partly worried about acrimony, you noxious buffoon.
(just kidding, Kev!)
I do understand that a line will be drawn, however, i am suggesting that the line may be different on different parts of the site. The forum implies its the "public domain", the rest does not... I do appreciate a desire to police content to some community standard however -- but I don't think that was it.
So now we're talking about freedom of speech... does this count as a successful hi-jack?
Hey ABC is now offering to allow us all to share our stories about how global warming is affecting our lives:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2094224&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312MM can write- and write, and write, and write- about the problems at BK (if he can find a way to blame them on global warming), maybe Brad can blame the slowdown in Corridor H on global warming, Scott can blame the loss of control of some of his threads to global warming
, etc etc.
All I know is, ABC will have the definitive scientific document for global warming with this new comment forum. Yessir. Climatologists, eat your hearts out.
Canaan has averaged 166 inches of snow during the last 5 years,of which the 1st year had the lowest recorded snowfall on record. That means that even if we had an average year next year, the 5 year ave would skyrocket!...What would you rather have...more snow..& more snow melt or less snow & friged temps?Eat more Fish & less borritos!!
Oh now I even I think that's complete rubbish. Global warming -- i mean we are talking 100s of years really aren't we. sure we got a bit of warmth now, some averages up, so forth. sure some meltback in a few places at some glaciers -- whose to say those aren't just local phenom. I mean when someone says global warming it has to be tied to a global phenom, consistent across the globe... that's just rubbish.
Heck, I was in New Zealand recently tromping up to the bottom of a GLACIER. I was wishing I had my skis (note skiing tie in) and thinking about how much it would be to ski down the thing just like back home at Whitetail (note tie in)...
Anyway, you could look around the place and see the treeline, how it had changed going up the side chasm -- the glacier USED TO BE A HECK OF LOT bigger. Then you get to some signs and it shows where it was 200 yr ago and 100 and 50, 20, etc... Well, it moves about a bit, no one completely understands why.
In this case it was creaping forward, it had retreated and was now moving forward. No one seems to know why, well that's what the sign said -- a MYSTERY!
Anyway, I really regretted not packing the ski boots. One can hike up in them with a GUIDE. The guide's just guarantee a certain level of safety - death can wait every turn, ever slip!
If you are really keen, you can heli-up -- this is expensive but somewhat safer.
When the heli goes up and you watch it turn into a little gnat of a spec of nothing as it goes to the top, then you realize HOW BLOODY BIG THE DANG THING IS!
I bet those there in NZ aren't even that big of ones really... bet there are bigger ones!
Yep, made me think of Whitetail and Bold Decision with good moguls, like in the old days... brought a tear to my eye, it did.
(note, mid-atlantic skiing tie-in)
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Eat more Fish & less borritos!!
Methane output is still the same for my GI tract. A certifiable freak of nature.
Hey now, there is some truth to that! The way that lady holding the slow/stop sign at the bridges looked yesterday, you'd have thought she could barely move cause of the heat. Not that I mind looking or having her take her slooooow time.
At this rate if everyone is moving that slow because of the heat, we'll see the bridges done 5 years from now after there is a McCauley Bridge-Bypass created. lol
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Eat more Fish & less borritos!!
Methane output is still the same for my GI tract. A certifiable freak of nature.
Mmmmmmmm, needs garlic. I think i read somewhere that bovine produced methane is considered a greenhouse gas, so is JohnL producing outhouse gas and does outhouse gas have the same effect on global warming as greenhouse gas?
Jimmy,
Dang! I guess I'd better cut out all that Mexican food!
-Warren-
Duly noted that anecdotes about global warming (or anything about the climate) is pretty much rubbish. Isn't hiking to a glacier amazing Kev? I hiked to the Carbon Glacier on Mount Rainier this April and although it was only a 2 1/2 mile hike (one way) it was probably the most spectacular hike I've ever done. It felt like another world and I hiked to the foot of the glacier- where you weren't supposed to go because you might die- utterly mesmerized. Watched rocks larger than my head bouncing off the 150 foot ice face and smashing on the debris field around me.
The photos at the base of the hike clearly demonstrated the glacier has been on the retreat; I think almost every glacier in the Lower 48 is in reverse right now. But yeah, some glaciers are advancing. When I was in Alaska back in 2001 the local papers were still talking about two glaciers that had just surged.
Apparently sometimes there's enough pressure built into a glacier that it expands a couple miles in a couple months. It's called something like "surge" and is a pretty amazing phenomenon. Scientists still aren't sure about what exactly causes one glacier to just bust loose like that.
I think glaciology would be a wonderful field to be in. Though John McPhee writes that volcanology is even more amazing. You can't ski a lava field though.
Rog, nice tie-in to skiing at the end, I was WORRIED. But you forgot to add the 'like' to it. As in 'you can't ski it LIKE my favorite mid-atlantic ski run: (your favoritate run here)".
That is very very important to say! do not forget!
As for glaciers & volcanos. In NZ they have live volcanos somewhere off the coast, the north island is active -- and in fact one of the big tourist draws is this lake that still has steam rising out of surrounding area. The lake was a big volcano and then it blew up and formed the lake... err I think i got the story right.
BUT YOU CANNOT SKI ON THAT LAKE, at least snow ski, like at my favorite Whitetail run: Bold Decision with VW Bug sized moguls on it.
However, you can SKI DOWN in the south island which doesn't have any volcanos BUT does have lots of GLACIERS.
But you cannot ski down the glaciers (only a mad-man would try such a zany thing) -- but you can ski around QUEENSTOWN area, if they have snow. Perhaps you will enjoy skiing down a run there that reminds you of YOUR favorite RUN HERE IN THE MID-ATLANTIC.
Now -- as for melting. Well it was colder for a few hundred years and them glaciers got bigger, now it is warmer and they be shrinkin. This we do know for a fact. And that's all I have to say about that!
As for volcanos, recently someone died in a volcano explosion in NZ, except they weren't actually in NZ but on a nearby island. They were not SKIING but they were a vulcanologist, and they were looking for Spock. Naw, that was a joke. But they really were a volcanologist, studying volcanos and they did not make it when the volcano made a puff. Which was a tragedy.
Which reminds me of the time when my pizza fell off my plate and onto my ski boot during lunch at Whitetail. I wasn't watching where I was walking and daydreaming about my favorite ski run: bold decision with vw bug moguls...when I slipped and the pizza fell to the floor, but onto my ski boot first. It was a tragedy.
For all of you skeptics or disbelievers for convenience (i.e. slacker generation who don't want to commit to anything other than changing the batteries in your remote control), let us all looks at this with a little common sense, as an engineer would:
Q:What are fossil fuels?
A: Stored solar energy
Q: What happens when you burn millions of years worth of stored solar energy in less than 100 years and exhaust the by products to our atmosphere
A: Perhaps you would agree that there would be some change in our atmosphere, eehh?
It really simple physics, isn't it. For every action there is an equal reaction. What exactly is the equal reaction to burning millions of years of stored solar energy? Is it the greenhouse effect? Is this a temporary abomination that will dissipate by the equal reaction? We shall see. But my point is all you folks who think that you can drive your Hummer, burn copious amounts of electricity, with the results being huge amounts of waste products exhausted to the atmosphere and it will not have an effect - I say your just plain stupid, stuborn, naive or just don't care.
So then the faster we burn it the sooner the next ice age comes? We do waste so much energy in this country.........we've come to the point of growing corn not to feed people but to burn in our cars
....so we can drive to Tline or <insert favorite MidAtlantic ski area here> to ski......so what about some of your favorite days from last season?
KevR- your reply had me in stitches! That was Jimmy-like in it's pure brilliance. It should be honorarily added to the Untopic as one of the great posts on this site. It was almost as brilliant as my favorite run in the Mid-Atlantic, Bold Decision covered in VW-sized moguls, but very little is that brilliant...
I think I'll make a separate post regarding the latest global warming comments.
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KevR- your reply had me in stitches! ...... It was almost as brilliant as my favorite run in the Mid-Atlantic, Bold Decision covered in VW-sized moguls, but very little is that brilliant...
Reminds me of OTW this year it was a Sunday, rianed in the morning and the sky broke to bluebird and the snow got just SO, whale skiing at it's finest, bumps on the right jumps on the left snow so soft me and whit and some other guys and we just tore it up big smiles gotta go back for just one more just one more and that was a day i remember.
I'm off to look for RZ' post on global warming .
forty ounce to freedom
DMH- did you get a chance to check out the executive summary? Basically, this report partially refutes- and partially supports- the controversial "hockey stick" chart that was made by two researchers in the late 1990s. In
this paper, it is demonstrated that using the methodology that was used to create the original temperature graph, you get a hockey stick output with simple red noise. This paper is not without it's critics, however, and the "hockey stick" debate has been going back and forth for about five years now.
What this panel was convened to address was whether the preponderence of evidence that currently exists on the climate supports or does not support the original hockey stick assertion. Their conclusion was "sort of." All of this is in the executive summary, but it breaks into three components:
1) from 1600 on, it is likely that we are in the warmest period;
2) from 900 on, it is "plausible" that the last 25 years have been among the warmest or the warmest;
3) prior to 900, there is not enough evidence to make any judgments about the temperatures.
In addition:
a) there was probably a little Ice Age sometime in the middle of this millenium, centered around 1700 if I recall from the paper. The Little Ice Age ended by 1850;
b) there may have been a "global optimum" in the early part of this millenium where the temps were above the average for the last 1000 years, but there's not enough evidence to say this for certain.
There are several things that I've seen in the media the last few days that are maddening. First, the media has largely ignored the "plausible" finding and has instead been quoting one scientist from the panel who insists it's "likely" that this has been the warmest period in the last 1000 years.
That is not the conclusion the National Academy of Sciences reached. The NAS said "plausible," which carries with it less certainty than "likely."
Second, MSNBC said it was "possible" that the end of the 20th Century was the warmest period of the last
2000 years. The AP one-upped them this morning by stating that this
was the warmest period in the last 2000 years. NOWHERE in the evidence presented by the executive summary does it say that this is the case. This is, with regard to the evidence presented, an exagerration and a pretty extreme one by the media. Based on the NAS, it could very well have been 10 degrees cooler OR warmer in 600 AD than it is now. MSNBC could just have easily have written "it is possible that there were ice bergs in Jamaica 2000 years ago" for all the report says about it.
Finally, MSNBC put the original hockey stick chart at the lead of their article. This is NOT the chart presented in the executive summary. Indeed, the NAS report debunked three of the claims in the original hockey stick analysis, which were as follows:
1) temperatures were constant for 2000 years;
2) there was no "climate optimum" in the early part of this millenium, and there was no "Little Ice Age" in the middle of this millenium;
3) the 1990s was the warmest decade of the last 1000 years, and 1998 was probably the warmest year in the last 1000 years.
These were all originally claimed and, if you look at the chart presented by MSNBC, you can see that the original chart supported such statements. However, the NAS executive summary clearly says there is not enough evidence to prove (or disprove) the first assertion, that the second assertion with regard to the climate optimum is plausibly false and with regard to the Little Ice Age is much more likely to be false, and with regard to the third assertion is probably incorrect too.
Now, the NAS does go on to say that it is likely that humans have influenced the climate over the last several decades. So to that extent there is support in this document that global warming is occurring, if by global warming we mean "a change in the global mean temperature as a result of man's behavior.*" I'd venture to say then that this report cannot be seen as a great victory for either the "pro" or "anti" global warming folks- it kind of gives something to each. But it is certainly and indisputably a MUCH more ambiguous report than what the media is presenting, and the folks who originally "debunked" the hockey stick think that it failed to address some key contentions. See:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=715#more-715Now, I'm sorry if I'm being unscientific by doing such stupid, lazy things as looking at primary documents and trying to gather evidence, apparently I don't have the brains to ask rhetorical questions that border on Saturday-morning cartoon logic:
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What happens when you burn millions of years worth of stored solar energy in less than 100 years and exhaust the by products to our atmosphere
Well that all depends on what the by-products are, or am I missing something here? I mean, if energy is burned with 100% efficiency, there is no by-product at all. If the by-product is something that creates opacity- say, H20 that increases cloud cover- the result could be reducing the amount of solar energy that reaches the planet and a subsequent cooling of average global temperatures. If the by-products are quickly reconsumed by the earth, then there is likely to be no effect at all. And if the by-products reduce the ability of radiative energy to escape the atmosphere, then energy build-up is likely and warming or more precipitation or something could occur.
But oh, silly me, I'm thinking in terms of DYNAMICS!!! Dynamic modelling is, after all, just an excuse of the intellectually lazy to not do anything, isn't it. It's so much less naive to just read what the AP reports and believe it verbatim. I'll have to write to all of my friends who are getting their masters and PHds in fluid dynamics and systems modeling and tell them what a bunch of lazy idiots they are. Those poor fools. They could just drop out of school, get their updates on global warming from DCSki and go ski the best Mid-Atlantic run all winter (for as long as we have winter) instead- Cupp Run at Snowshoe!
* note that such a definition makes no statement about the likely outcome of such a change. Even if the statement is true, there is no causality that a change in temperatures has a positive, negative, or neutral impact on human or biologic life. The policy implications of this definition are therefore unclear. It makes it important to ask the question and investigate outcomes, but it does not tell us what- if anything- ought to be done.
You never skipped school,did you ProfesserZ? Hows the temps running down in kansas? Anyway the bottom line in the Global warming argument is if man is the root cause. Did you all know that you can find shark teeth up in the Arizona MTN's? There must have been some serious warming going on in our past that wasn't caused by man! We had a cool spring & have not experienced any unusual heat waves so far this summer down on the coast of the carolinas.So, Everything is KOOL here......CHILL!
Cool site, thanks for the link Kev! Not as cool, of course, as Timberline after a two foot powder storm, which is by far some of the best conditions in the Mid-Atlantic, but whatever it's June now...
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I do understand that a line will be drawn, however, i am suggesting that the line may be different on different parts of the site. The forum implies its the "public domain", the rest does not... I do appreciate a desire to police content to some community standard however -- but I don't think that was it.
I've been away so didn't get to comment on this aspect, but feel it's important to chime in. Nothing about DCSki is in the public domain. DCSki is a privately operated, privately owned site. No one is guaranteed any ability to publish content on DCSki, although it is extended as a courtesy.
"Freedom of speech" only means that the government will not take steps to restrict your free speech. It does not apply in any way to private institutions, such as DCSki, the shopping mall, private schools, etc.
It is my right, and indeed my responsibility, to periodically limit discussions on the DCSki Forums that I do not believe contribute to the goal of keeping DCSki a ski-focused site serving the mid-Atlantic region. Certain discussions may be of interest to a subset of the DCSki community but might turn off the broader community -- and I'm trying to keep DCSki as inclusive as possible. Discussions of global warming have historically turned into political shoutfests with little or no bearing on mid-Atlantic skiing. As I said earlier, there are places for such discussions (and such discussions are very important to have), but DCSki isn't the best place.
I very rarely exercise editorial control or influence on the forums as I want them to be a place for open discourse. But it is my call to make. That doesn't mean you have to agree with it, but I'm trying to look out for the greater good of the DCSki community and head off potential problems. (And in the case of profanity, name-calling, etc., I have a zero tolerance policy on DCSki. That's historically the only reason I've stepped in, and thankfully it hasn't been required much at all, given the maturity and professionalism of DCSki readers.)
Yes I guess were all a little hypocritical, aren't we. Who knows, maybe global warming is caused by human flatulence. We really need to ban baked beans and Mexican food, especially in combination with beer. This could be deadly to the planet.
Maybe we are all really living in a Matrix world, plugged into a giant mainframe feeding us what to think when really it's an ice age going on outside and if we just unplugged ourselves, we could ski off the top of the capital and land in 20' of fluffy powder. :P
Here's the deal about Global Warming in the Mid-Atlantic. If the Tree Hugger, Al Gore crowd (which includes me) are correct about Global Warming, we will see a number of Mid-Atlantic ski areas close within the next 15 years or so (if not sooner). Lets face it, a couple of ski areas are on the edge (weather-wise) right now, so even a small increase in the average Winter temp would likely spell disaster for them. On the other hand, if the Conservative, anti-Green crowd is correct, nearly all of the Mid-Atlantic ski areas will stay open; plus, we will probably see a couple of new ski areas open over the same period. At any rate, I would say that it's going to take another decade to see what's really going on with Global Warming in the Mid-Atlantic. By the way, I'd like to thank Roger Z for a great post with lots of good data on Global Warming.
[QUOTE) I mean, if energy is burned with 100% efficiency, there is no by-product at all. If the by-product is something that creates opacity- say, H20 that increases cloud cover- the result could be reducing the amount of solar energy that reaches the planet and a subsequent cooling of average global temperatures.
I know of know human invented electro-mechanical process that burns energy with 100% efficiency, especially the process we are referring to (i.e. burning fossil fuels). There is strong evidence supported by literally thousands of scientific institutions that suggest with the vast discharges of CO2 into our atmosphere( not H2O as you suggest) are affecting our climate. I mearly suggest that if you look at it from a commons sense and somewhat scientifically, we have exhausted the by products of hundreds of millions of years of stored solar energy into our atmosphere. And I believe that the nay sayers out there who think that this phonominen has no affect on our climate are doing so for their own convenience, in my opinion. It reminds me of the Chevy Suburbans, Ford Excursions and Hummmers I see driving with one person and a "Support our Troops" bumper stickers.
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Eat more Fish & less borritos!!
Methane output is still the same for my GI tract. A certifiable freak of nature.
JohnL--If your methane output keeps me from strapping on some snowshoes and spending some quiet time in the backwoods above Whitegrass this winter, you better start sayin' your prayers!!
I git a might ornery if I don't get to my winter happy spot regularly.
As a followup to RogerZ's nicely worded thesis, I can only add the following: Check out
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.html.Especially take a look at Figures 1.2 through 1.6.
I may not be the brightest bulb in the drawer but it looks like the earth has had some pretty warm weather long before mankind was in a position to seriously muck things up. That's not to say we all aren't doing a number on the environment now but even if we trashed every car and rode horses up to Timberline in the winter, that might not stop the trend.
Hey, that just gave me an idea. If all the ice does melt, maybe Mount Porte Crayon would make a good beachfront marina instead. You could have grass skiing and snorkeling in the same resort. You catch that Bill Bright! Remember where you heard it first.
yellowdog i must compliment you on the way you tied both posts into skiing in the mid atlantic, KevR would be proud
"......food I send with you. At the gate of the forest I must ask you to send back my horse and my ponies. But I wish you all speed, and my house is open to you, if ever you come back this way again.
They thanked him, of course, with many bows and sweepings of their hoods and with many an at your service, O master of the wide wooden halls! But their spirits sank at his grave words, and they all felt" grateful that he was riding a pony and not driving a Hummer!
Snowsmith- I didn't mean to imply that H20 was the by-product. I was just using it as an example of what a by-product might be. Another possible by-product is unusually long posts on websites.
I'd also be more than happy to concede that humans have an impact on the environment. At the micro level, every city is a heat island and who knows how many creeks and rivers we've pretty much killed thanks to our pollution (I once read that there is only one creek left in West Virginia that still has a natural stock of trout, the rest of the creeks need to be stocked because of the acid from mining). On a macro level, almost every species when it reaches a certain biomass has an impact on its environment. It's one of the major drivers of evolution. The only way we could assume that humans don't have some impact on the environment is to assume that we are somehow outside of the environment, which makes no sense at all.
But from this observation, an extremely difficult question arises: given that we cannot NOT have an impact on the environment, how much of an impact should we as a species have? I think the fundamental divide in the global warming debate- the 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one likes to talk about- is a basic disagreement about the trade-offs. There is more than one side of this issue, but some positions probably include: 1) those who are afraid to concede that we may be adversely impacting the environment because they believe that such a concession will require a drastic change in our lifestyle; 2) those who think that a change in our lifestyle will do more harm than good; 3) those who think that a change would do more good than harm; and 4) those who are afraid to concede that our impact on the environment may not be harmful for fear that such a concession will
not require a change in our lifestyle. For a number of reasons, I fall somewhere near the second of these categories, though being a former risk manager- and more importantly, being a LOVER OF SKIING IN THE MID-ATLANTIC!!!
- I hedge my bets to some degree.
Yellowdog I liked your link, but think it's more entertainment value than anything else. The one thing that might be of interest if true was that in their 2000 year timescale, large temperature changes appeared to be take a fairly short time to occur, as a rule. But again, I'm dubious as to how much stock to put into the charts.
Time to call the "missus"...
Roger - your present your arguments well. Yes, each human leaves his foot print. However, I think that nature has a balance that is upset by human activity. And I am not talking about one human being, I am talking about billions of us. Perhaps we are an aberation on this planet. Sometime it almost seems like we don't belong, but that is a philosophical question that we cannot address. If you look at the big picture, and I mean the real big picture, you can take the approach that - well our sun will super nova someday and we're all going to be fried anyway, or the earth has been here for billions of years and we're just a spec here in the 20th and 21st century, So who really gives a crap. We can just throw up our hands and say, who cares, I'm not altering my lifestyle. Well, I believe that the earth will bring itself back into balance to offset the huge volumes of CO2 and other gases that result from the immense burn-off of fossil fuels. This will take a very long time and the consequences are going to be a rise in sea level, climate change resulting in the loss of our coastal areas, drought, famine, etc. For example, Mt. Kilamanjaro in Africa was snow capped for 11,000 years. It is estimated in 10 years there will be no more snow pack on this mountain (so much for skiing Bushmen). The result will be the anticipated spring snow melt supplying water will not happen. So the folks around Mt. Kilamanjaro will HAVE to change their lifestyle since their water supply will not be there anymore. A similar situation could happen the American Southwest where snow melt is their major source of water. So you see, you may not want to alter your lifestyle, but you may have to. Interestingly, one possible scenario is that the melting of the polar ice caps may actually cool the middle latitudes of the planet, thus we may have a longer ski season here in the Mid-Atlantic. So let's get out there with our gas guzzlers and produce some CO2!
The whole issue is pretty simple if you just think about it logically (I know nothing about the so called science). The earth has been warming since the ice age. Man has added some fuel to the fire. The result will be some snow melting, longer growing seasons, shorter ski seasons in some areas (and possibly longer in others), higher water table. Certain societies will be displaced or have to change thier lifestyles. Some will voluntarily change lifestyles to reduce the human footprint. Nature will take it's course and things will cycle again. The higher moisture and plant growth will offset warming by absorbing greenhouse gases and cooling the planet. Momentum will build in the opposite direction leading to an ice age - and EPIC skiing from Maine to Georgia. Time Frame - one million years. Also - isn't the sun getting smaller everyday as it burns?
snowsmith, good post. We're now learning that the earth's eco-systems and climatic systems are quite fragile. The sheer number of humans on the planet has put most eco-systems under extreme pressure. Added to that are massive amounts of green house gasses that are produced every day and the constant destruction of forests, especially the rain-forests. So, it's not the least but surprising that we're seeing a general warming tend with lots of extreme weather events. Man has decided to mess with "mother nature" at his own risk. Now, lets all go out and support the economy and buy a jumbo sized SUV!!!!
Okay, I liked both MM's and Snowsmith's post... what is the world coming to?
The comments about the SUVs were hilarious. I can just see it: five years from now I'll be driving a hybrid with a "Love Your Mother" bumper sticker and Mountain Masher will run me over in his Ford Hummamunga while on his way out to ski at Blue Knob. Stranger things have happened!
ps- though I need to throw these links in. This web page purports to show that water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas:
http://www.clearlight.com/%7Emhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Though it seems to me the most reliable source in his footnotes comes from 4a, which shows that water vapor- while making up at least 50% of greenhouse gases may not make up 95% as the article claims (the reason, apparently, is because scientists cannot distinguish the principle cause of heat trapping within certain spectral bandwidths):
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/environment/appd_d.html (spectral overlap reduced potential heat trapping from water vapor)
(and, incidentally, both of these make a hash of my earlier assertion that water vapors may contribute to global cooling. Apparently, BIG NO)
And, finally, all those Kyoto nations are having trouble meeting their objectives:
http://www.euractiv.com/en/sustainabilit.../article-156338
While the U.S. not only has less carbon intense emissions than the global average:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html (see particularly Figure 6 and explanation)
but is also reducing its carbon intensity quite rapidly:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/press272.html
One of the most common arguments that the Right-Wing likes to offer (to discount the idea that modern-day human activity affects Global Warming) is that there have been other extremely warm periods within the past 10,000 years. Although, it's true that there have been some mild periods (prior to the current Global Warming), no warm spell within the past 10,000 years even begins to approach the current warm-up. Case-in-point, the scientific evidence shows that Mt. Kilamanjaro in Africa has ALWAYS had an ice cap over the past 11,000 years and perhaps longer. Yet, the ice cap on Mt. Kilamanjaro is almost gone and will be completely gone within a decade!
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One of the most common arguments that the Right-Wing likes to offer (to discount the idea that modern-day human activity affects Global Warming) is that there have been other extremely warm periods within the past 10,000 years. Although, it's true that there have been some mild periods (prior to the current Global Warming), no warm spell within the past 10,000 years even begins to approach the current warm-up. Case-in-point, the scientific evidence shows that Mt. Kilamanjaro in Africa has ALWAYS had an ice cap over the past 11,000 years and perhaps longer. Yet, the ice cap on Mt. Kilamanjaro is almost gone and will be completely gone within a decade!
I'm no expert but a quick google search shows that there have been 60 Ice Ages in the last 2 million years meaning the average period of the oscillation is over 30,000 years. To say the ice cap on Mt. Kilamanjaro is smaller than it has been in the last 11,000 years is not necessarily significant. In fact this neat little animated gif shows that the glaciers on our continent have been retreating for the last 20,000 years. Unfortunately it doesn't show the current state of the glacier.
I'm not saying that there isn't a man made component to the warming of the globe. Just saying that certain facts, such as retreating glaciers, aren't necessarily the best way to prove it.
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no warm spell within the past 10,000 years even begins to approach the current warm-up.
You know, for someone who likes to lampoon other people for being unscientific, you can certainly be so yourself. Didn't you read the NAS (that's the National Academy of Sciences) report that was linked to earlier? For that matter, have you read ANY of the links here? The NAS conclusion is that there's practically nothing we can say about temperatures relative to current temps prior to 900 AD. Would you like to cite your authority that would counter what the National Academy of Sciences has to say on the matter? Or provide us some links to back up what you're saying? Your statement is no more valid than the "Right Wing" statements you're claiming to refute. Can we just assume you're the "Left Wing" equivalent of the anti-evolutionists?
Murph - I think the point that your missing is that most of the change that has occured to Mt. Kilamanjaro's has happened over the last 10 years. Thus the change is accelerating. And I believe that the reason your map doesn't show the status of the glacier is that there is none and there hasn't been one for a long time.
I agree, the important thing to remember about the on-going Global-Warming event is it's RATE, which is unprecedented in the past 100,000 years or so. That's why so many species are becoming extinct or are near extinction, they simply can't adapt fast enough. If the warming continues to accelerate at it's current pace, we're in real trouble. However, some scientists think that the current acceleration is caused (in part) by a short-term climatic cycle that will abate in another 10 years or so.
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Global-Warming event is it's RATE, which is unprecedented in the past 100,000 years or so
Okay MM, you have just proved that you don't bother to read what anyone links to or listen to anything that is said that you don't agree with. So after IGNORING the NAS study, you proceeded to make an even MORE audacious claim. This wouldn't be so embarrassing except that the claims you're making have been refuted on this very thread. If you had followed Yellowdog's link to:
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.html
You would see that your latest claim is as equally tenuous as your one about the last 10,000 years. It's actually more tenuous, because as difficult as it is to figure out what specific annual temperatures are as you go back in time, it's even MORE difficult to figure out the rate of change in temperatures between years. What next? Are you gonna tell us that a dinosaur walked by your house the other day and said, "damn it's hot!"???
Incidentally, near-term data from the NOAA suggests that the rate of acceleration in temperature change may be declining, not increasing. It is possible that temperatures have levelled off since 1998 (please note that I did not say that temperatures HAVE stopped warming. I am stating that the data may not be clear as to whether temperatures are continuing to grow warmer or whether they are warming at an increasing rate, given the reported data from the NOAA):
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2005/ann/global-blended-temp-pg.gif
Doesn't the whole thing now turn on costs --- do we spend money NOW to bring CO2 levels back to 'historical norms' -- or do we wait until its absolutely 100% clear that runaway C02 levels are producing a man-made global warm up on the planet ... and then spend money to try to fix the problem?
Your call...
Scott with all due respect, please CHECK the definition of the word "FORUM" in the dictionary.
you know, Boarderbabe was rite - this has gone too far. Guess what everybody, we're all screwed. It may be just a blip on the radar or a long-term trend, fact is there is a meltdown. And guess what, the USA will always, ALWAYS be the cause in the worlds' eye, because the thing that makes us all well-off n the US is the thing that makes us most-hated. Sorry fact-of-life unless you invoke the Danish-love stuff which is nice but not really relavent. Suck it up:
1) The world is really getting warmer, at least for the "short-term" which means at least our generation's lifetime... or longer. Sorry that's it.
2) The US is really the greatest producer of CO ... if or if not that has anything to do with it it really does not matter, your are guilty now with no recourse.
3) No one likes you. PERIODE. Get use to it or move to another country, like that will help.
5) It's a be-atch to be hated.
6) No one said you are going to be loved; the rest of the world things the USA sucks and that is the way it is. That's what you get for being the most afluent country in the world. Gee life is so tough. We all get to ski and drive our cars and watch TV at night and eat until we are full.
7) .. suddenly, I find myself quite embarrased being a person in the US. Our country was founded by the greatest people on Earth, but now what? I wonder what our founders would think of us now ... not a whole not, I'd reckon.
8) I expect this will be my last message; I'll get totally flamed for it, but at least it's my thoughts...
.. and I will still be skiing, free and doing it. Scorn or not.
".. Better to burn-out, than to rust away. My my, hey hey.." - Neil Young
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Scott with all due respect, please CHECK the definition of the word "FORUM" in the dictionary.
Happy to oblige:
forum: noun. A place, meeting, or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.
The DCSki Message Forums are a medium where ideas and views on mid-Atlantic skiing and boarding can be exchanged.
This thread is in the "DCSki Discussions" forum, which has always been described on the main forum page as: "General discussions related to skiing and snowboarding in the Mid-Atlantic."
As I said before, there are countless other forums on the Internet devoted entirely to discussions of global warming and climate change. I am trying to keep DCSki focused on mid-Atlantic skiing and boarding for the good of the site.
The focus of the site and maturity of discourse is what has made it popular. I make very few demands and rarely exercise any kind of editorial control. (I can only think of one or two occasions in the past 9 years.) I can't say I'm terribly pleased that my simple request seems to have been ignored. I pour an enormous amount of time and money into DCSki and the last thing I want to do is spend time on issues like this, but I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't think it was important.
By and large this is a great, fascinating thread. It just doesn't belong on DCSki. I have received feedback from DCSki readers who are concerned DCSki is being hijacked and turning to an off-topic, name-calling free-for-all. I've seen that happen to other sites and don't want that to happen here, a concern that I think is shared by many.
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".. Better to burn-out, than to rust away. My my, hey hey.." - Neil Young
ahh Crush, love the Neil Young ... to continue that line of thought...
"Got mashed potatoes, ain't got no t-bone..."
"the morning sun has yet to cross my hood ornament..."
"Welfare mothers make the best lovers..."
"The lasers are in the lab
The old man
is dressed in white clothes
Everybody says he's mad
No one knows
the things that he knows.
No one knows, no one knows
No one knows, no one knows..."
I think, perhaps unfortunatly for you, that the term "forum" implies public discussion, check out dictionary.com for example on the two or three typical definitions of the word.
For most folks (in my opinion) an intuitive understanding of the word would suggest freedom to write and post what they want -- if you have to exercise more editorial control, then I suggest you spell that out more clearly when you sign up to be a site user, and well do it then.
In terms of content, I (obviously) fall into the catagory of a more lax policy in this area, subject to some sort of vague community standard on morals (i.e. no porn, etc...)
Then in my mind this discussion, well not this one but the one on global warming, is fine and even topical to skiing, but only in a very long term sense.
In addition, folks have been reasonble nice, and i don't think there's been much name calling per se...
And I might add, I'm glad to see some folks delving more into the details themselves instead of just dismissing things entirely without any thought.
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By and large this is a great, fascinating thread. It just doesn't belong on DCSki. I have received feedback from DCSki readers who are concerned DCSki is being hijacked and turning to an off-topic, name-calling free-for-all. I've seen that happen to other sites and don't want that to happen here, a concern that I think is shared by many.
"breathe, breathe in the air,
Don't be afraid to care."
Pink Floyd, Time
Time to let this go, if concerned readers of DCSki want to forum about something else i'd suggest they MAKE A NEW POST, that's where i'm off to. Scott may have been anticipating the usual flame war this topic generates when he asked us to stop, this thread has been pretty cordial but
"breathe, breathe in the air"
Hey Crush ... hope you're still out there.
Consistent with your tone, I think it's actually "Hey Hey My My ........Rock and Roll will Never Die!
Now I've got to go listen to it.
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Hey Crush ... hope you're still out there.
Consistent with your tone, I think it's actually "Hey Hey My My ........Rock and Roll will Never Die!
Now I've got to go listen to it.
"my my hey hey, Rock and Roll is here to Stay "
Jimmy,
"They say the heart of rock and roll is still beatin'...and from what I've seen I believe em.....The 'ol boy may be bearly breathin'.. but the heart of rock and roll, the heart of rock and roll is still beatin' ..boom boom....boom boom..."
-Warren-
Nah, folks- it's "Set Me Free" by Reckless Kelly, perhaps the only song ever written about the glories of skiing (that and it's a GREAT song)! This clip has the key verse in it:
Set Me Free