Global Warming...Fact or Fiction?

[Sanjac]

I don't watch television, so I don't keep up with all the claims about global warming. It's enough to see the effects of the propaganda barrage in other media. At least I can report that October was unusually warm in Houston; no record-setting temperatures but no respite from the subtropical climate because we didn't get the winds from the north. I've heard that folks up north had a bad time of it; maybe they should have exported some of that cold air down here where it would be appreciated. My wife tells me that this is due the El Nino cycle.

Maybe, like all religions, global warming only applies to those people who believe in it. You just gotta have faith.

[JAD_333]

Many global warming alarmists of my acquaintance--not scientists by any means--are pointing to this unusually warm December as more proof of their anxieties.

Not so fast says the director of NOAA's advance climate prediction service. What we're actually experiencing is more mundane: a combination of a powerful El Niņo and something called 'arctic oscillation.'

The El Niņo effect, as everyone knows, messes with the jet stream allowing warm air from the Gulf of Mexico to venture farther north than usual, hence spring-like temperatures in winter.

Arctic oscillation is a less well-known phenomenon. Basically, it traps cold air in the arctic regions, air that would normally push south.

Asked if global warming had anything to do with the unseasonably warm temperatures up north, the NOAA spokesman said, "not really.

Does all this mean global warming isn't real or not a threat? No. It just means the alarmists are off their rocker this time.

[gunnut]

What's so bad about "climate change?"

Didn't we vote for "hope and CHANGE?"

Well...I didn't.

[JAD_333]

What's so bad about "climate change?"

Depends on who gains and who loses. The dinosaurs...not so good.

[Officer of Engineers]

depends on who gains and who loses. The dinosaurs...not so good.

heyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!

[Parihaka]

Like ^^

[S2]

Well...this is the second consecutive winter from my perspective. I work in the Lewis River valley of Washington. It's headwaters lie in the Washington Cascades. I'd guess our elevation is probably 500 ft but we're surrounded by high hills in the 2000 ft range and rising progressively east up the valley until, eventually, Mt. Adams at 12,000ft+. Last winter, for the first time I recall in five years, our hills were completely devoid of snow the entire winter save briefly in late November, 2014 and, again, in April for a day. Meanwhile the N. fork of the Lewis ran ridiculously low all winter, spring and summer...and much of this fall.

Not so this year. The moisture is back, in spades, and our river are over their banks. The air, however? Really warm. North of the 45th parallel and my patio door is open at 9:45PM and the air temp about 45F.

Just to keep us on our toes (as if floodings and interstate closures aren't enough) we're under a high wind warning from 10:00AM tomorrow until Tuesday. 25-45mph with gusts to 60+mph. As saturated as our soil right now, I'm anticipating lots of downed trees. That means blocked roads and downed power lines.

Oh boy. Fun.

[Andrey Egorov]

Ten degrees to the North we have warmest December ever, same 45F here. Generally it means we'll see bare ground in May instead of April next year.

[gunnut]

The storm that will unfreeze the North Pole

The Atlantic

Robinson Meyer

11 hrs ago

The sun has not risen above the North Pole since mid-September. The sea ice — flat, landlike, windswept, and stretching as far as the eye can see—has been bathed in darkness for months.

But later this week, something extraordinary will happen: Air temperatures at the Earth’s most northernly region, in the middle of winter, will rise above freezing for only the second time on record.

On Wednesday, the same storm system that last week spun up deadly tornadoes in the American southeast will burst into the far north, centering over Iceland. It will bring strong winds and pressure as low as is typically seen during hurricanes.

That low pressure will suck air out of the planet’s middle latitudes and send it rushing to the Arctic. And so on Wednesday, the North Pole will likely see temperatures of about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius. That’s 50 degrees hotter than average: It’s usually 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero there at this time of year.

Winter temperatures have only snuck above freezing at the North Pole once before. Eric Holthaus, Slate’s meterologist, could not find an Arctic expert who had witnessed above-freezing temperatures at the pole between December and early April.

2015 is the warmest year ever recorded. Thirteen of the top 14 warmest years on the books have happened this century. And here in the United States, it has been a hot, strange month. Many cities across the northeast smashed their Christmas and Christmas Eve temperature records not at midday, but at the stroke of midnight. For the hundred-plus years that New York temperatures have been recorded, the city has never been warmer than 63 degrees Fahrenheit on a December 24. Yet at 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve of this year, the thermometer measured 67 degrees.

Some of this North American heat is a regular feature of every El Niņo. (Indeed, I wrote about this El Niņo-associated heat a few weeks ago.) But in the Arctic, this level of warmth is unprecedented. In order for this huge, hot storm to reach Iceland on Wednesday, it’s punching right through the Jet Stream, the atmospheric “river” that brings temperate weather to Europe. Yet El Niņo should typically reinforce this current, explains the climate writer Robert Scribbler—for the Jet Stream to weaken is a sign that something else is going on.

While institutional science will take years, if not decades, to confirm a correlation between human-forced climate change and strong North Atlantic storms, Scribbler believes that Wednesday’s insane warmth at the pole resembles the southern incursions of the “polar vortex” that have been seen in recent winters. These changes are related to human-forced climate change, he writes: a sign that something in the atmosphere has gone “dreadfully wrong.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/top...Bxy?li=BBnb7Kz

Global warming is back with a vengeance. The earth has never been warmer before. This is the highest CO2 content ever in the history of the planet. We must tax the people in advanced economies to stop the warming.

The science is completely sound:

higher taxes in rich nations = lowered planetary temperature

[Sanjac]

... The earth has never been warmer before. This is the highest CO2 content ever in the history of the planet...

And if you don't believe it, just ask the guys who are paid six-figure salaries to say so!

[gunnut]

And if you don't believe it, just ask the guys who are paid six-figure salaries to say so!

Remember, science is all about consensus. I have faith in science.

[tantalus]

Currently I am happy to align myself with Ridley.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog...o-science.aspx

[gunnut]

Currently I am happy to align myself with Ridley.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog...o-science.aspx

A denier!!!!

You doubt the consensus by 97% of scientists? You doubt the words of the experts? What makes you think you can challenge the truth of climate change?

You ignorant religious conservative republican bigots sicken me. Go back to your Faux News. Sometimes I wish we could jail people who don't believe in basic science.

[dundonrl]

A denier!!!!

You doubt the consensus by 97% of scientists? You doubt the words of the experts? What makes you think you can challenge the truth of climate change?

You ignorant religious conservative republican bigots sicken me. Go back to your Faux News. Sometimes I wish we could jail people who don't believe in basic science.

truth of climate change???? yes, there IS climate change, but NO it's NOT man made that's causing it, but the natural normal cycles of the sun and the earth. Unfortunately, there's been so much "adjustment" of global temperatures to try to make the man made climate change the reality, that your 97% are using false data to come to their conclusion.

[Sanjac]

Remember, science is all about consensus. I have faith in science.

Science is about facts. Politics is about consensus.