Last year ranked in top10 for heat

[ski the trees]

Last year ranked in top 10 for heat

WASHINGTON – Last year was the eighth warmest year on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The world's temperature in 2008 tied that of 2001 according to the center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Preliminary calculations show the world's average temperature for 2008 was 0.88 degree Fahrenheit above the 20th Century average of 57.0 degrees F.

The ranking means that all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997.

Climate scientists around the world have raised concerns about global warming caused by the so-called greenhouse effect in which chemicals, largely generated by human activity, trap solar radiation.

Researchers fear far-reaching effects ranging from changing storm patterns, damage to crops and wildlife, droughts to spread of disease.

The climate center noted that since 1880, the annual combined global land and ocean surface temperature has increased at a rate of 0.09 degree F (0.05 degree C) per decade and the rate has increased over the past 30 years.

NASA, which uses a slightly different method of calculating temperatures, has rated 2008 as the ninth warmest on record.

[Stormchaser]

Last year ranked in top 10 for heat

WASHINGTON – Last year was the eighth warmest year on record, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The world's temperature in 2008 tied that of 2001 according to the center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Preliminary calculations show the world's average temperature for 2008 was 0.88 degree Fahrenheit above the 20th Century average of 57.0 degrees F.

The ranking means that all of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1997.

Climate scientists around the world have raised concerns about global warming caused by the so-called greenhouse effect in which chemicals, largely generated by human activity, trap solar radiation.

Researchers fear far-reaching effects ranging from changing storm patterns, damage to crops and wildlife, droughts to spread of disease.

The climate center noted that since 1880, the annual combined global land and ocean surface temperature has increased at a rate of 0.09 degree F (0.05 degree C) per decade and the rate has increased over the past 30 years.

NASA, which uses a slightly different method of calculating temperatures, has rated 2008 as the ninth warmest on record.

While global warming is a certainty, there is no proof humans are largely the cause...

[rogman]

While global warming is a certainty, there is no proof humans are largely the cause...

What would constitute proof for you? Facts don't seem to work...

[KV]

It seems to be that humans have caused a slight temperature rise due to our activity on the planet. However, the sample size of temperatures recorded by humans is soooooo small compared to the time humans have been on the planet let alone the total time the Earth has existed that we cannot look at this miniscule data set and state that we are going to cause a global catastrophe.

That Right wing OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE philosophy really bothers me. Maybe slight global warming will allow more rainfall which will increase crop production? Maybe the forests of the world will grow faster due to increased rainfall and warmer temps? Who knows?

[ski the trees]

Here's a quick blurb I thought was interesting:

The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world’s oceans.

The present trend of warmer sea temperatures, which have risen by an average of half a degree Celsius (0.9F) over the past 40 years, can be explained only if greenhouse gas emissions are responsible, new research has revealed.

The results are so compelling that they should end controversy about the causes of climate change, one of the scientists who led the study said yesterday.

"The debate about whether there is a global warming signal now is over, at least for rational people," said Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "The models got it right. If a politician stands up and says the uncertainty is too great to believe these models, that is no longer tenable."

In the study, Dr Barnett’s team examined more than seven million observations of temperature, salinity and other variables in the world’s oceans, collected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and compared the patterns with those that are predicted by computer models of various potential causes of climate change.

It found that natural variation in the Earth’s climate, or changes in solar activity or volcanic eruptions, which have been suggested as alternative explanations for rising temperatures, could not explain the data collected in the real world. Models based on man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, however, matched the observations almost precisely.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 516033.ece

Now I'm not saying we're all going to die tomorrow from global warming, but thaw and re-freeze cycles are not fun and avalanches caused by poorly bonded snow due to an early season r*in crust are not safe. All I'm saying is that as a community of people who love to ski, we should accept what's happening and start to do easy, everyday, common sense things to make sure we help ensure continued outdoor winter activities that are fun and safe.

[XtremeJibber2001]

Now I'm not saying we're all going to die tomorrow from global warming, but thaw and re-freeze cycles are not fun and avalanches caused by poorly bonded snow due to an early season r*in crust are not safe. All I'm saying is that as a community of people who love to ski, we should accept what's happening and start to do easy, everyday, common sense things to make sure we help ensure continued outdoor winter activities that are fun and safe.

No one is doubting the World is getting warmer, but we're debating what say we have in it all. Buying a hybrid and some new light bulbs is going to do about just as much to control the GLOBAL temperature as Al Gore's carbon credits after flying solo on a commercial jet all around the World.

[Stormchaser]

WASHINGTON —

New research is raising concerns that global warming may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb trapped in once-frozen permafrost. As the Earth warms, greenhouse gases once stuck in the long-frozen soil are bubbling into the atmosphere in much larger amounts than previously anticipated, according to a study in Thursday's journal Nature.

Methane trapped in a special type of permafrost is bubbling up at a rate five times faster than originally measured, the journal said.

Scientists are fretting about a global warming vicious cycle that had not been part of their already gloomy climate forecasts: Warming already underway thaws permafrost, soil that had been continuously frozen for thousands of years.

Thawed permafrost releases methane and carbon dioxide. Those gases reach the atmosphere and help trap heat on Earth in the greenhouse effect. The trapped heat thaws more permafrost, and so on.

"The higher the temperature gets, the more permafrost we melt, the more tendency it is to become a more vicious cycle," said Chris Field, director of global ecology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "That's the thing that is scary about this whole thing. There are lots of mechanisms that tend to be self-perpetuating and relatively few that tends to shut it off."

The effect reported in Nature is seen mostly in Siberia, but also elsewhere, in a type of carbon-rich permafrost, flash frozen about 40,000 years ago. A new more accurate measuring technique was used on the bubbling methane, which is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than the more prevalent carbon dioxide.

"The effects can be huge," said lead author Katey Walter of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "It's coming out a lot and there's a lot more to come out."

Another study earlier this summer in the journal Science found that the amount of carbon trapped in this type of permafrost — called yedoma — is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be 100 times the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of fossil fuels.

It won't all come out at once or even over several decades, but the methane and carbon dioxide will escape the soil if temperatures increase, scientists say.

The issue of methane and carbon dioxide released from permafrost has caused concern this summer among climate scientists and geologists. Specialists in Arctic climate are coming up with research plans to study the effect, which is not well understood or observed, said Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a group of 300 scientists.

"It's kind of like a slow-motion time bomb," said Ted Schuur, a professor of ecosystem ecology at the University of Florida and co-author of the Science study. "There's these big surprises out there that we don't even know about."

Most of this yedoma is in north and eastern Siberia, areas that until recently had not been studied at length by scientists.

What makes this permafrost special is that during a rapid onset ice age, carbon-rich plants were trapped in the permafrost. As the permafrost thaws, the carbon is released as methane if it's underwater in lakes, like much of the parts of Siberia that Walter studied. If it's dry, it's released into the air as carbon dioxide.

Scientists aren't quite sure which is worse. Methane is far more powerful in trapping heat, but only lasts about a decade before it dissipates into carbon dioxide and other chemicals. Carbon dioxide traps heat for about a century.

"The bottom line is it's better if it stays frozen in the ground," Schuur said. "But we're getting to the point where it's going more and more into the atmosphere."

Vladimir Romanovsky, geophysics professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, said he thinks the big methane or carbon dioxide release hasn't started yet, but it's coming. It's closer in Alaska and Canada, which only has a few hundred square miles of yedoma, he said.

In Siberia, the many lakes of melted water make matters worse because the water, although cold, helps warm and thaw the permafrost, Walter said.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/di ... ming_x.htm


I can cut and paste too. With evidence on both sides of the story, its foolish to make a decision one way or the other if humans are a threat to this planet by warming the atmosphere.

That aside, do I think its the right thing to do everything possible to reduce the possible effects on global warming from humans - YES. I have medical insurance because I might get sick, not because I will...

[Bubba]

We know so little but think we know so much...

The universe revolves around the earth.
The earth is obviously flat.
The sun is good for us...wait, it's bad for us...wait, it's good for us again.

The fact is, when it comes to global climate change, we don't know how much (if any) man is causing through industrial and automotive activity. Not to say we shouldn't deal with those potential causes, but don't put too much certainty in today's science for it will surely change.

[ski the trees]

If you guys both agree we should all act more responsibly to reduce our own carbon footprint, then who cares what is causing global warming? The end result is the same, and maybe our actions will make a difference.

[TLonginotti4KTon]

Its called a Dansgaard-Oeschger event and their are many others like it, such as Bond Events in the Holocene (our present epoch). Look it up. I am a EES major and while they do not teach us whether climate change is due to humans or not, it is reality, it is happening. The argument should not be why its happening, but that IT IS HAPPENING and what to do about it, if anything. As an evolutionist, I am content with doing nothing and letting evolution take its course. The fact is, most of you do not know what you are talking about.


Darwin award soon to be awarded to the human race.