The climate is changing. What changes have you noticed ?

Question

Have you noticed any specific changes with global warming kicking up a gear ?

A light hearted comment I heard made was that it could mean the end of tanning parlours ! What suggestions do you have ?

Answer 1

This question is interesting because it highlights the difference between climate and weather.

People mostly can't sense changes in climate (long term, widespread, relatively constant). They can sense changes in weather (short term, local, extremely variable) very well.

So, basing your information about climate on your perceptions of weather is wrong. They're related, but in a subtle way.

The only way to tell what the climate is doing is to make precise measurements of the the weather in a lot of places and analyze them methodically over a long time.

So a whole lot of well trained scientists ("climatologists") do that. And 99+% of them say we're starting a dangerous period of man induced climate change, aka global warming. The very best data and analysis is here:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

But you can't say anything about climate change based on your personal perceptions of the weather.

Answer 2

For real - I've traveled all over but in my 32 years, but I've lived in two cities - 100 longitudinal miles apart. Grew up where I am now, lived east for a few years then moved back. Based on this being a geographically unbiased observation, I've observed the following.

When I was a kid, snow started to fall and stay on the ground in late November. In the last say 5-10 years, that has changed. Now, we don't get snowfall accumulation until early January. The snowfall used to be relatively steady - 2-3 inches throughout winter. Now its three or four major falls or many minors ones compacted together.

When I was a kid, summer had temperatures between 70 and 90 degrees (F not C). Now, its temperatures between 80 and 110 degrees with more humidity.

Fall is the same as it was, but shorter and spring seems non existent - much less rainfall as that comes in summer rather than spring now.

It also seems that there is more wind now than when I was a kid. In summer, there is a little less, but in fall and winter, there is much more, which drives the wind chill down. I can understand why it SEEMS colder, but the temperature isn't - it just seems that way due to higher winds on the whole.

These changes have not been steady. They seem to be within the last 5-10 years where there was once only small fluctuation from year to year.

Admittedly, this is all from memory, but I'm also a more tolerant as an adult than I was as a kid (a little kid gets cold faster than an adult) and things still seem as they do to me. You would think that if things are the same as they always were I'd comment on the seasons getting milder don't you?

Answer 3

I saw on the weather last night that this winter has been the second warmest since 1914. (And before all the global warming alarmists start jumping up and down, bleating “See! SEE!”, can I point out that that means the winter of 1914 was *warmer* than this winter.)

I was chatting about this to a friend recently, and he said that we don’t seem to get as much snow as we used to, but I questioned whether that was actually true. As kids, we love the snow and have heightened and cherished memories of it, but, as I asked my friend; how *many* snowmen do you actually remember building? I’m pretty sure I built a snowman every time it snowed, but I don’t remember building that many. Maybe 10? Certainly no more than 20.

So, less than 20 snowmen in *all* my childhood. So how often did it really snow then?

Are we really having that much less snow, or do we simply remember the snow more than the boring rain in between?

I don’t really know, I’m only putting it forward as a possibility.

This year is not a good year to ask this question because, as mentioned above, we’ve had an unusually warm winter. I read in the paper recently that we get these warm winters about once every 10 years. It’s nothing unusual, it happens regularly.

Answer 4

nicely positioned. Consensus isn't technological information and we are able to bypass back to the Nazis who had a medical consensus that the ARIAN RACE grow to be the dominant race. i take advantage of this as an severe because of fact it sort of feels the main extensive-unfold call to call somebody you disagree with. whilst politicians use an argument to develop taxes or earnings potential anybody could be weary. Al Gore is making hundreds of thousands with this argument yet lives in a extensive abode, rides everywhere in inner maximum planes and particular owns great SUVs so does he extremely stay by what he preaches? NO so why could we? climate substitute is a fact and the climate has replaced many circumstances throughout the time of the earths background. The seas has risen and fallen many circumstances and the evidence of it extremely is interior the Grand Caynon the place historic sea creatures are got here upon quite their fossils are and that i'm particular we weren't here whilst that got here approximately. i'm additionally puzzled once I found out as youngster that CO2 grow to be absorbed by flowers which they then released oxygen back into the air so isn't CO2 essentually plant food? Which one is right? Glasciers have additionally greater desirable and receeded many circumstances as info interior the land being carved by them and the repositioning of extensive rocks so why is anybody panicking whilst glasciers start to soften interior the summertime time. i assumed the northern contemporary carried heat water from the Carribean to the North Pole and this makes England inhabitable and on the comparable time inflicting Ice Burgs to break off from the north pole yet then how can CO2 soften all of this Ice. i must be puzzled or informed the incorrect ingredient. ultimately i assumed the solar presented mild and warmth for the Earth so I gues the solar is responsible for each thing now or am I nevertheless wong or what i grow to be reported incorrect? i pick the solar and not guy inflicting climate substitute sorry.

Answer 5

Daffodils are out in February in UK where previously they didn't appear until March.
If global warming is an ongoing feature and not just part of a climatic series then UK will change. The business to be in will be airconditioning and swimming pools and Winter heating bills will be less.

Answer 6

Global warming is happening more and more each year, this year will once again see the hottest summer on record.

Check out "An Inconvenient Truth" a film made by Futurama star Al Gore.

Answer 7

I live in Greece. 15 year's ago we had the 4 seasons.
Now, one day we have cold, and it rains like crazy, and the next we have summer.
The temperature goes up and down during the day. From rain to a really hot day. We never had ext-rem temperatures during the summer. Now we have from 40c until 42c in June and July, and tropical rains during the August.
The see level has gone up.
Except from this the temperature of the see has became really hot.
We have many islands that if this continue we wont have any fishes left.
God knows what is next.

Answer 8

I have noticed, just by observing, prior to it becoming popular news/weather report fodder:

The expected beginning and end of seasons changing.
An increasing number and severity of storms, rather than one or two storms they are becoming like non stop chains and they are travelling further before they burn out.
Winter is shorter, but what storms we get are "deeper", Spring and fall are wilder and summer is hotter.

I know what is happening. I just never dreamed it would happen this fast. To know why, go to the 326,000,000 X ... question. When it closes you'll know the answer.

Answer 9

Amanda F. You have to have been around the world more times than the Mir spacestation luv! You mean to tell me you have personally noticed all these changes? Have you been sitting on the edge of a beach with a ruler measuring sea level changes?

Answer 10

It would definitely be the weather. The sea level is rising, north and south poles are melting glaciers, weather conditions worsening as in Jan-Feb 2007, USA is experiencing snow storms etc.