The biggest winter storm in decades is crawling across the heartland of America...and conservatives are using it to "prove" that "global warming" is a fake, a liberal conspiracy, bad science, et cetera, ad nauseum.
But the winter storm is very much due to global warming, and it's fairly easy to see why. Let's make it simple by going through a few questions:
#1 - Which region on the planet has had the greatest increase in temperature over the past couple of decades?
Answer - the Arctic, as is shown here, here, and here; when the earth's overall temperature rises, the Arctic's rises significantly more.
#2 - So what happens when the Arctic temperature rises so much more than the temperature on most of the rest of the planet?
Answer - Easy. Ask yourself what happens when any gaseous substance is heated. Its local pressure increases and as a result the gaseous substance EXPANDS. In the case of the Arctic, we've got several million cubic miles where the temperature has risen 
significantly more than it has in the sub-arctic areas...and as a result, the warmer Arctic (which is STILL very cold to us, mind you) is expanding, pushing colder sub-Arctic and even Arctic air down to lower latitudes. That's why, people, that we're getting historically-bad winter weather not only here in America but also in the rest of the world that shares our general latitude, i.e. Europe and Russia.
I first saw this forecast by climatologists this past summer (and I lost the link to it). And you know what? It's going to continue this way for most winters for the foreseeable future, all thanks to global warming.
But I don't expect this to change the mind of a single conservative reader. Why? Because anything a liberal says or supports must be wrong, so anything a conservative says, no matter how silly or nonsensical—like "Global warming's false because God wouldn't allow it!"—is more patriotic and better for America than anything that 98% of the world's climatologists say is proven by hard data year after year after year.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Glenn Contrarian
To the editor -
I understand why you moved this article to the Sci/Tech section (and we've had this discussion before)...but while global warming is a scientific matter, it is very much a political issue as you well know.
But if the quite scientific issue of abortion be allowed on the politics section instead of the Sci/Tech section only, if the quite cultural issue of racism be allowed on the politics section instead of the Culture section only, then the scientific issue of global warming should also be allowed on the politics section instead of being restricted to the Sci/Tech section only.
But it is of course your right, your call and not mine...and I respect that. I hope that perhaps some others whose complaints to you are (to put it very mildly) less savory can get a clue that one can express disagreement with the editor(s) without going off the deep end.
2 - Dr Dreadful
Glenn, I agree with you that this one belongs in Politics. It's not one of your best - science vs. strawman never goes down well - but the general thrust of it is political.
If you had written a straightforward rebuttal of some 'skeptic' arguments about AGW, without touching on whatever political motivations may or may not be behind them, then it might have sat better in Sci/Tech.
Articles of the species Abortius frothimouthii almost without exception belong in Politics. Science can describe the human life cycle, but it can't pinpoint a precise instant at which potential life becomes actual life. That doesn't, however, stop there being plenty of opinions on the matter.
As far as racism is concerned, the topic is so inextricably bound up with politics in this country that it's difficult to place it anywhere else.
3 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc - I don't know whether to argue with you or agree with you, but I'll smile and accept the constructive criticism and the Latin sobriquet.
But the massive winter storm IS due to global warming.
4 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Honestly, I think more people have a problem with the picture that Gore & Co. painted about Global Warming rather than the scientific evidence that backs it up.
I could care less what political party raises awareness as long as it isn't a scare tactic. Personally, I believe there is a serious climate change happening but I also believe that this could be a natural cycle and our scientists don't have enough evidence to prove it because we haven't been around as long as this planet has.
As for God, this syndrome is a disease that permeates the brain and causes delusions that we are of utmost importance to the universe. Thus, it prevents its victims from being able to handle reality and for them to realize that such events in nature cannot be explained away as the force of some greater power.
In essence, anyone who says that such natural events don't exist because of a "God" is basically sick & needs immediate medical attention.
5 - Clavos
Personally, I believe there is a serious climate change happening but I also believe that this could be a natural cycle and our scientists don't have enough evidence to prove it because we haven't been around as long as this planet has.
Quoted for Relevance and Common Sense.
[Scientists do have quite a bit of historical evidence -- some of it relevant, some not -- much of the evidence they do have points to a cyclical alternating of cold and warm periods going back for millenia. What climate scientists also have is an abiding, deep interest in keeping the multimillions of dollars in GW-related research grants going -- aka "job security"]
6 - STM
Yeah, I'm enjoying the cold weather ... it's 2am here in Sydney, about 30C in the house after hitting low to mid 40s all week, and humidity has to be about 90 per cent. You just can't escape the mixture of the two things. The aircon cools about a 10th of the house, the ceiling fans are next to useless.
And did I mention Tropical Cyclone Yasi, about the size of Hurricane Katrina, is battering the North Queensland coast as I type. It's a category five, the highest category, and is the most destructive since 1918.
And just like everything that happens weather-wise on this continent - floods, fire, drought, rain and storm - it's cyclical. This current east coast weather pattern down under is due to the South Pacific basin's La Nina phenomenon, which is the direct opposite of El Nino.
In parts of Peru and Chile right now, it's dry as buggery. This is a cycle that's been documented for many centuries on at least one side of the South Pacific rim, so we know it goes in cycles.
Until a year ago, we'd been in drought for a decade. This is how it is, and I bet if you looked back through North American or European weather patterns you'd find similar cycles.
Sorry guys, I don't buy the entire, man-made global-warming argument.
7 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
@ Clavos,
Unfortunately, I, too, feel that the IPCC has its own financial agenda that is based on misinformation,fear & intimidation and not the actual concern for this planet.
Again, I most certainly do believe in a serious climate change. I just don't believe that it, necessarily, has anything to do with mankind.
8 - Clavos
Brian,
I agree with you. Only a fool would doubt that the climate is changing, but the point is, the climate is always changing and the evidence shows it always has.
9 - Glenn Contrarian
Ah, yes, the climate's always changing -
And hundreds of millions of cars pumping carbon monoxide into the air each and every day can't have anything to do with it.
And 14,000 air flights over the US alone each and every day can't have anything to do with it (note - when air flights nationwide were canceled for three days after 9/11, surprise surprise, the nationwide temperature 'inexplicably' DROPPED by more than a degree...but I'm sure this was only a coincidence, too).
And the hundreds of thousands of factories throughout the world supporting 7 billion humans can't have anything to do with it.
And the thousands of coal power plants pumping exhaust into the air each and every day can't have anything to do with it.
And the 98% of climatologists who point out that human-caused global warming is real, that there are no other current external causes that can explain the worldwide rise in temperature...yeah, all these are weak-kneed crackpots, and the other 2% of climatologists (most of whom are at least partially on the payroll of Big Oil) are Real Patriots for standing against the rest of their colleagues.
And the climatologists who predicted way back in the 1990's what's going on now, including the continual rise in global temperatures were just lucky, and the fact that their predictions turned out to be true was just a wild coincidence.
Riiiiight.
10 - Andy Marsh
Hey, billions of fish piss in the ocean EVERY SECOND. How come the ocean doesn't just turn into a big toilet?
Just wondering...care to somehow validate that 98% number? i've seen plenty of climate folks that don't support what you're saying, so I doubt that number is accurate.
When I was growing up it was global cooling, now it's global warming...nobody ever seems to mention the cycles that I've seen discussed here.
But yeah, let's just shut the entire fucking world down, shall we? We'll halt all the plane travel and we'll all crush our cars and then we can all go live in fucking caves again...yeah yeah, that's the ticket!
You want people to drive electric cars then make one that travels more than 90 miles without a 4 hour minimum recharge! I think that's how capitalism is supposed to work. People make stuff that actually works and then other folks buy it from them...or we could go the libtard way and just have the govt mandate it...that always works so well...
Or we could all just pile into some place like NYC...all of us...and leave the rest of the planet to the endangered effervescent blue tree frogs of the earth...would that be sufficient?
Just a thought...
11 - Glenn Contrarian
Andy -
Authentication of the 98% is here
And when it comes to fish, those fish have been there for hundreds of millions of years and are part of the natural cycle. Cars and factories and jets and coal plants have NOT been here for hundreds of millions of years, and are NOT part of the natural cycle.
Try again, guy.
12 - Clavos
And Glenn, ALL -- ALL -- of the world's climatologists are on SOMEBODY's payroll...
When I was growing up it was global cooling...
Bingo, Andy! And, if memory serves, it didn't cool at all, did it? No, instead, it (gasp!) got hotter.
So, that bandwagon got jumped on, and now it's gospel and everyone's making money on it -- in some cases, (algore comes to mind), MILLIONS AND MILLIONS...
Hmm.
13 - Andy Marsh
Hey! I wasn't "trying" anything. I asked a couple of questions.
It's nice to complain about how no one believes you because you're a liberal, but how 'bout you come up with maybe just one solution!
I mean do you really expect the world to shut down? Does EVERYONE need to be poor? That's what would happen if an iota of what global warming alarmists want to happen did happen. We're already paying $5 a piece for foreign fucking light bulbs! My house is full of flourescent lights and my 'lectric bill hasn't dropped a lick! And they don't last any longer either!
The same people that scream about coal fired power plants whine about nuclear power!
Just look at what ethanol production has done to the price of corn. And that shit's subsidized!
So really, it's nice to be all warm and fuzzy on the environment, but without concrete, WORKABLE solutions it's nothing more than hot air.
Think of all the electricty we're wasting here arguing about it!!!
But you know what? the world would be a better place if we just shut the whole thing down...let's do it!!!
14 - Clavos
Cars and factories and jets and coal plants have NOT been here for hundreds of millions of years, and are NOT part of the natural cycle.
Absolutely true, and yet...
before there were cars and factories and coal plants and..and all them nasty thangs -- the climate...you guessed it!
The climate warmed!!! Then it cooled!!!
Then warmed again and cooled again, and it's still doing it!
The following, from the website, junksciencedotcom, helps to put the effect of all CO2 and especially manmade (MM) CO2 on the atmosphere into perspective:
CLIMATE SENSITIVITY
"The sensitivity of the climate system to a forcing is commonly expressed in terms of the global mean temperature change that would be expected after a time sufficiently long for both the atmosphere and ocean to come to equilibrium with the change in climate forcing. If there were no climate feedbacks, the response of Earth's mean temperature to a forcing of 4 W/m2 (the forcing for a doubled atmospheric CO2) would be an increase of about 1.2 °C (about 2.2 °F). However, the total climate change is affected not only by the immediate direct forcing, but also by climate “feedbacks” that come into play in response to the forcing."
"As just mentioned, a doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide (from the pre-Industrial value of 280 parts per million) in the global atmosphere causes a forcing of 4 W/m2. The central value of the climate sensitivity to this change is a global average temperature increase of 3 °C (5.4 °F), but with a range from 1.5 °C to 4.5 °C (2.7 to 8.1 °F) (based on climate system models: see section 4). The central value of 3 °C is an amplification by a factor of 2.5 over the direct effect of 1.2 °C (2.2 °F). Well-documented climate changes during the history of Earth, especially the changes between the last major ice age (20,000 years ago) and the current warm period, imply that the climate sensitivity is near the 3 °C value. However, the true climate sensitivity remains uncertain, in part because it is difficult to model the effect of feedback. In particular, the magnitude and even the sign of the feedback can differ according to the composition, thickness, and altitude of the clouds, and some studies have suggested a lesser climate sensitivity."
Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, pp 6-7,
Committee on the Science of Climate Change
National Research Council
15 - Dr Dreadful
Actually, about two-thirds of the scientific papers on climate change published between 1965 and 1979 predicted warming - more than six times as many as the ones that predicted cooling.
But the cooling predictions were more dramatic as far as mainstream news organizations were concerned (i.e. they would sell more newspapers), so they ran with those and exaggerated them into an Ice Age.
16 - Dr Dreadful
before there were cars and factories and coal plants and..and all them nasty thangs -- the climate...you guessed it!
The climate warmed!!! Then it cooled!!!
Then warmed again and cooled again, and it's still doing it!
I think I'll go out into the woods this summer, light a big old fire and leave it unattended.
It can't do any harm. After all, we know that forest fires have started naturally in the past. I'm just one guy with a box of matches. I can't possibly start one.
17 - Glenn Contrarian
And Andy -
You say you see "plenty of people" who doubt global warming...so why don't we listen to those who are best QUALIFIED to speak on the matter...like scientists!!!!
Here is a short list of scientific institutions who agree that global warming is REAL - on this reference you can find their organizations' official statements concerning the reality of global warming and how it is affecting their particular fields of study.:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (the world's largest general scientific society)
- American Chemical Society
- American Institute of Physics
- American Physical Society
- Australian Institute of Physics
- European Physical Society
- European Science Foundation
- the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS)
- American Geophysical Union
- European Federation of Geologists
- European Geosciences Union
- Geological Society of Australia
- Geological Society of London
- International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
- National Association of Geoscience Teachers
- American Meteorological Society
- Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
- Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
- Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
- Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
- World Meteorological Organization
- American Quaternary Association
- International Union for Quaternary Research
- American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
- American Institute of Biological Sciences
- American Society for Microbiology
- Australian Coral Reef Society
- Institute of Biology (UK)
- Society of American Foresters
- The Wildlife Society (international)
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American College of Preventive Medicine
- American Medical Association
- American Public Health Association
- Australian Medical Association
- World Federation of Public Health Associations
- World Health Organization
On the same reference page is a MUCH shorter list of organizations - five, to be exact - who gave non-committal statements, and NONE that have a currently dissenting statement. Four of those organizations were Earth Sciences and geological organizations, and one was a SMALL organization of climatologists. Note that 'non-committal' does NOT equal 'dissenting'.
Most important of all, perhaps, is this statement:
No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.
Hm. The AAPG - the association of geologists who work for BIG OIL - was the last one to reject global warming...and even they no longer reject the reality of human-caused global warming.
18 - Clavos
Because, with all the hysteria over AGW, there is more money to be made "studying" it, and who would be so foolish as to kill the goose laying the golden eggs?
19 - Andy Marsh
Glenn - that's all great!
Now, what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?
What are YOU gonna do about it?
Bitchin' ain't fixin' it!
That's great that you can site all the OTHER alarmists, but you still haven't answered the question I've asked 3 times now...
What do you expect us to do about it?!??!??!??!
In case you missed the question the last 87 times, here it is again...
What do you expect us to do about it???
Would it be sufficient if we all bitched about it like you? Would that make you happy? No, I suspect that you won't be happy until you get what Dave wants...$5 a gallon gas...how fucking sad is that???
20 - Glenn Contrarian
Andy -
What can we do about it? That's why we tried to do cap-and-trade...but that was derided by the Right as another tax. We tried to use regulations to decrease emissions...but even NOW the Republicans are trying to limit the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. And did you notice in the SOTU address, when Obama mentioned getting rid of the taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil (like Exxon which paid NO tax in return for those subsidies in 2009), Speaker Boehner and the Republicans didn't clap at all? Especially when Obama mentioned using the money instead for green technology? Since when did it become patriotic to give taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil and NONE to technology for renewable energy such as solar or wind power?
What it is, Andy, is that the Right see that anything that could possibly slow business down is a BAD, evil thing...and in their eyes any form of regulation is therefore bad.
Problem is, that's a very shortsighted point of view, because allowing global warming to accelerate without even trying to slow it down is going to harm the global economy as a whole FAR more than any regulations hitherto proposed.
21 - Dr Dreadful
with all the hysteria over AGW, there is more money to be made "studying" it
Yes, screw all those filthy rich climatologists in their palatial mansions.
22 - Andy Marsh
I honestly thought that was the best line in the SOTU! But as I recall it, there wasn't a lot of applause from either side. Could have been a little more difficult to see the way they were all holding hands, but it seemed to be an indifferent response from both sides.
The problems I see with the EPA, currently, is the pres. using this agency and others, as an end-run around legislation he couldn't get passed. And if I was part of one of the other branches of govt that'd piss me off too!
I'm not familiar enough with cap and trade to talk about it...the one thing I do know is that it couldn't get passed when the dems had control, so both sides seem to think it's hosed...
And the other thing I remember is how everyone gave W shit for not signing Kyoto, but it was Wild Bill who refused to sign it first...he said it would hurt America...with that in mind, I think it's unfair to put the blame entirely on the republicans.
23 - Clavos
That's why we tried to do cap-and-trade...but that was derided by the Right as another tax.
Probably because it is, and one that would affect virtually everything consumers buy, at that. Not only that, as structured, it would have done little to reduced carbon levels in the atmosphere.
but even NOW the Republicans are trying to limit the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases.
Perhaps because the EPA is not empowered to regulate greenhouse gases, it's mandate is to enforce what the legislative branch regulates.
allowing global warming to accelerate without even trying to slow it down is going to harm the global economy as a whole FAR more than any regulations hitherto proposed.
An unsupported assumption.
24 - Glenn Contrarian
Andy -
There was applause from the Dems including Biden - but Boehner stayed stock-still and the rest of the Republicans took their cues from him all night long.
And the reason cap-and-trade didn't get passed was because of the 'blue-dog' dems like Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas...and I just read this morning that she just got hired on by an energy company....
When it comes to the EPA, were you around to see how much exhaust our cars put out in the sixties and seventies? Do you remember how much the conservatives (both Republican and Democratic) cried about how emissions standards were going to 'destroy' America's economy? IIRC, it was Nixon who implemented the EPA...and how's the smog now compared to a couple decades ago in, say, Los Angeles? And I can tell you from personal experience that our biggest cities have FAR less smog than major cities in third-world countries. Why?
Enforced regulations...that the Republicans say are a bad, bad thing.
25 - Clavos
Doc, you're getting to be a sniper, like me.
Stop it.
Now.