global warming?

Question

alright, so i have a friend who lives in alaska and right now theyre having the coldest winter that they've had in 20 years. right now it should be about 20-30 and instead in the heat of the day its -35 there...al we know you want attention but...c'mon

Answer 1

It's called GLOBAL warming, the average temperature is rising, but local variation will be different, depending on wind/current pattern shifts.

But is it very real. CO2 is 30% higher than it has been for 650,000 years. Methane is 130% greater. These are two of the main pollutants humans put into the atmosphere in excess, and they are two of the primary greenhouse gases.

Look at the 'hockeystick', which shows a dramatic warming since 1950 after a fairly stable climate for 1000 years. In fact, the 10 hottest years in recorded history have all happened since 1990, with 2005 being the hottest.
(see links below)

How's that for proof of man's fault in this? There is ample proof, any real scientist will tell you that.

There has NEVER been an article doubting man's influence on global warming published in a peer-reviewed journal. A recent study of almost 1000 proved that.

Yes, the earth naturally heats and cools, but the rate and amount we are warming now is unprecedented in the recent geologic past. We are doing this, and we must stop it. This is not some political statement or rhetoric. This is science trying to educate a crass, ignorant public of the damage they are doing. The magnitude of temperature increase ALREADY is about 10x that of the 'little ice age' of the middle ages, and rate and amount are only going up.

Just to be clear, glacial and interglacial cycles are mainly controlled by astronomical fluctuations, but we have a detailed record of the last 7 cycles, and what the climate and CO2 is doing now is way different and extreme. The rate of increase is much higher than in the past AND the value itself is much higher.

HI CO2:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4467420.stm
HOCKEY STICK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5109188.stm
General climate stuff:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3897061.stm

Answer 2

Whether or not there is global warming is no longer a question. We have had the 10 hottest average temperatures on record during the last 15 years. There really is a problem that has been caused by humans - and if something isn't done about it, it will be in your lifetime that you witness some major disasters. Don't just brush this off as b.s. Do yourself a favor and do some research for yourself. Don't take anyone's word for it.

Answer 3

No. Global warming is the latest pseudo-science cause to get grant money. 25 years ago -- these same folks were saying that we were headed into another ice age.

Don't get me wrong, everyone should do their part to be good stewards of the earth's natural resources and reduce our impact on the earth. However, the earth's climate has been in constant change for over 5 billion years. Are we (humans) so arrogant that we think 125 years of development can dramatically affect the climate? Tell that to the dinosaurs and wooly mammoths... Now, that was real climate change!

Answer 4

For a persuasive argument debunking global warming, your statistical exception doesn't carry a lot of weight. Whether the Earth fries in a few decades or in a few hundred decades, nobody can deny that humans, as opposed to any other living creature on this planet, are spoiling our lovely planet through overpopulation (and the resulting air, ground and water pollution) at an exponential rate. Obviously this is going to have a detrimental effect on the environment. Another detrimental effect on the longevity and sustainability of our planet is a certain group of apologists sticking their head in the sand while breeding like there's no tomorrow and firing up their gas guzzling air polluting SUVs.

Answer 5

Yeah, that's global warming. Here in the midwest we were running 10-20 degrees below what's normal last month. The same scientists that champion Global warming were telling us we were headed for an ice age in the 1970's. But being on the global warming band wagon is politically correct.

Answer 6

Well let's see... we know from geological evidence that the earth has periodic, that is, re-occurring Ice Ages. Sort of like the sunspot cycle only longer. We estimate from looking around that we are not currently in one of those Ice Ages. Hm-mm, must have been a period of Global Warming after the LAST Ice Age to get us to where we are now.

Are we still in a period of global warming (retreating from the last Ice Age) or are we in a period of global cooling (entering the next Ice Age)? Is there anything human industry can do about that, one way or the other? Prolong global warming? Delay the next Ice Age?

If so, I vote for global warming. It's more pleasant to be somewhat hot in the summer than to freeze in the winter. And maybe someday I'll own beach-front property in Dayton, Ohio.

Answer 7

In other words, is this disproof of global warming, right? Actually, at least according to my reading, global warming is an overall condition, and the term does not deny the possibility of localized and/or temporary conditions other than that caused by localized or temporary factors. Your cold winter could be this sort of thing.

Answer 8

The climate changes from year to year. At one time, we
were all concerned about global cooling. At any rate, no
one can do one thing about the weather or the climate even
if they think they can. So, all the attention and money invested
into this is just downright wasteful.

Answer 9

It might be over exaggerated. The time to observe is not long enough.
Global warming, no such thing!

Answer 10

Global surface temperatures have increased about 0.6°C (plus or minus 0.2°C) since the late-19th century, and about 0.4°F (0.2 to 0.3°C) over the past 25 years (the period with the most credible data). The warming has not been globally uniform. Some areas (including parts of the southeastern U.S.) have, in fact, cooled over the last century. The recent warmth has been greatest over North America and Eurasia between 40 and 70°N. Warming, assisted by the record El Niño of 1997-1998, has continued right up to the present, with 2001 being the second warmest year on record after 1998.

Linear trends can vary greatly depending on the period over which they are computed. Temperature trends in the lower troposphere (between about 2,500 and 26,000 ft.) from 1979 to the present, the period for which Satellite Microwave Sounding Unit data exist, are small and may be unrepresentative of longer term trends and trends closer to the surface. Furthermore, there are small unresolved differences between radiosonde and satellite observations of tropospheric temperatures, though both data sources show slight warming trends. If one calculates trends beginning with the commencement of radiosonde data in the 1950s, there is a slight greater warming in the record due to increases in the 1970s. There are statistical and physical reasons (e.g., short record lengths, the transient differential effects of volcanic activity and El Niño, and boundary layer effects) for expecting differences between recent trends in surface and lower tropospheric temperatures, but the exact causes for the differences are still under investigation (see National Research Council report "Reconciling Observations of Global Temperature Change").

An enhanced greenhouse effect is expected to cause cooling in higher parts of the atmosphere because the increased "blanketing" effect in the lower atmosphere holds in more heat, allowing less to reach the upper atmosphere. Cooling of the lower stratosphere (about 49,000-79,500ft.) since 1979 is shown by both satellite Microwave Sounding Unit and radiosonde data, but is larger in the radiosonde data.

Relatively cool surface and tropospheric temperatures, and a relatively warmer lower stratosphere, were observed in 1992 and 1993, following the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. The warming reappeared in 1994. A dramatic global warming, at least partly associated with the record El Niño, took place in 1998. This warming episode is reflected from the surface to the top of the troposphere.

There has been a general, but not global, tendency toward reduced diurnal temperature range (DTR), (the difference between high and low daily temperatures) over about 50% of the global land mass since the middle of the 20th century. Cloud cover has increased in many of the areas with reduced diurnal temperature range. The overall positive trend for maximum daily temperature over the period of study (1950-93) is 0.1°C/decade, whereas the trend for daily minimum temperatures is 0.2°C/decade. This results in a negative trend in the DTR of -0.1°C/decade.

Indirect indicators of warming such as borehole temperatures, snow cover, and glacier recession data, are in substantial agreement with the more direct indicators of recent warmth. Evidence such as changes in glacier length is useful since it not only provides qualitative support for existing meteorological data, but glaciers often exist in places too remote to support meteorological stations, the records of glacial advance and retreat often extend back further than weather station records, and glaciers are usually at much higher alititudes that weather stations allowing us more insight into temperature changes higher in the atmosphere.

Large-scale measurements of sea-ice have only been possible since the satellite era, but through looking at a number of different satellite estimates, it has been determined that Arctic sea ice has decreased between 1973 and 1996 at a rate of -2.8 +/- 0.3%/decade. Although this seems to correspond to a general increase in temperature over the same period, there are lots of quasi-cyclic atmospheric dynamics (for example the Arctic Oscillation) which may also influence the extent and thickness of sea-ice in the Arctic. Sea-ice in the Antarctic has shown very little trend over the same period, or even a slight increase since 1979. Though extending the Antarctic sea-ice record back in time is more difficult due to the lack of direct observations in this part of the world.