Climate Change Report: Weather Extremes Increasing

It sure would be a lot easier to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that what we do has no effect on our surroundings.

It’s likely I can die walking across the street tomorrow, but I have done it a million times and I am still here. Posted by: commonsenseparty | November 18, 2011, 8:14 am.

Actually, if you’ve crossed that street safely a million times, then it is highly unlikely you will die walking across it tomorrow. Likely or unlikely deals with odds and probabilities. It’s highly likely, based on past performance, that you will cross that street safely again tomorrow…………

Think about it this way: For over 4 billion years, the only emissions into Earth’s atmosphere came from volcanoes, plants and animals. The human species came into being 200+ thousand years ago. Industrialization arrived only 200+ years ago. Thus, for all of the years up to 1800, prior to the Industrial Revolution, emissions came only from animal flatulence and natural Earth cycles (volcanoes, geysers, etc.)
Over the course of the last 220 years, humans have greatly exacerbated the amount of “non-natural” entities emitted into the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil) the breeding of more farm animals (cows, pigs, etc) than those “naturally” created, the creation of more and more machines. So, the Earth has BY FAR experienced the emission of more junk into its atmosphere over the course of the last 200 years or so than in all of it 4.5 billion year existence. Does this prove global warming? NO. However, it should make us wonder what kind of impact we are having on the Earth itself. Can it sustain this vast influx of pollution? The last 200 plus years is most definitely “something NEW under the sun.”

COMMONSENSEPARTY: “Please take note on the frquency the word “likely”. That’s some science huh?” – - – And exactly how is that unscientific? Please cite any authentic natural science textbook that insists scientific findings must always generate 100% certainty. Science functions on PROBABILITIES, not certainty. Only people who don’t have an authentic understanding of science try to impose an overly simplistic false dichotomy of either 100% certainly or 100% unknown upon scientific conclusions. Rational people capable of independent thought easily understand there are several OPTIONS/STANDARDS for the confidence levels from which we can choose besides beyond a shadow of a doubt 100% certainty. There is the more likely than not standard, and the preponderance of the evidence standard, and the beyond a reasonable doubt standard. Even the theory of gravity has holes in it considering how we still don’t know what gravity is or how it works. So, unless you also doubt the theory of gravity because it does not provide 100% certainty then it is somewhat hypocritical to insist on imposing that unrealistic standard to GW theories.

commonsensepart: ‘But it’s not science.” – - – WilliamDawesJr.: “Of course it’s not science!’- – - Please elaborate by explaining PRECISELY how GW theories are not science. Please provide a cogent explanation for how they don’t properly apply/follow the scientific method. Please cite any valid scientific studies that conclusively refute GW theories and use repeatable and verifiable objective empirical evidence to do so. Please provide a cogent explanation for how simply speaking through a political board/committee necessarily disquallifies scientific findings.

Commonsenseparty: “Please take note on the frquency the word “likely”. That’s some science huh?” — That IS science. That is EXACTLY what science is. ALL science is a matter of probabilities. If science shows us something is “likely,” wouldn’t it be kind of stupid to ignore it?

Read “The weather isn’t getting weirder” in the Wall Street Journal. It lists the published scientific studies that show weather to be no more extreme now than it has been since good weather records have been kept.

In fact, because the very small amount of global warming since 1910 has decreased the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles, scientists actually expect hurricanes to decrease. Guess what? That’s exactly what the actual data shows! Recent years have seen the lowest integrated global cyclone energy since records have been kept.

Jock, when I refer to the science being done and clear, I am referring to the summary statements issued by such well respected science bodies as the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, the Royal Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (among many, many others). All of those bodies have issued summary statements that Global Warming is real, man-made and a threat. I will take their word on science over that of an “editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal” any day.

Patrick: Are you still peddling that same old disproven tripe about ‘Climategate’? You repeat the felonious charges of the agenda driven thieves as though they are gospel. But you ignore the FACT that those charges were investigated by an independent scientific panel and were found to be baseless. That report has been available to you for over two years. The charges were investigated by the Royal Society and found to be without basis. That report has been available to you for over two years. The charges were investigated by the British House of Commons and were found to be without basis. That report has been available to you for over two years. The charges were investigated by Penn State University and were found to be without merit. That report has been available to you for over two years. The charges were investigated by the U.S. Department of Commerce at the direct behest of noted climate change skeptic Sen. James Inhofe and were found to be without merit. That report has been available to you for over two years. Every one of those reports found that the data used by the Climate Research Unit was accurate, that the analysis done by the CRU was scientifically sound and justifiable, and the conclusions drawn were wholly supportable. Most recently, the infamous Koch brothers contributed $150,000 to a $600,000 fund set up to disprove the data behind the CRU studies. They chose noted climate skeptic Dr. Richard Muller to head up that study. The results: Dr. Muller found after examining 1,600,000,000 data points that the data was accurate, that “Global Warming is real” (HIS words), and that the scientists who have been reporting global warming have been right all along – for decades. So I ask you again: Are you still peddling that same old disproven tripe about ‘Climategate’?

The IPCC has no credibility beyond the political hacks trying to justify economy killing energy regulations and the UN’s desire to be relevant in the World as a governing body. There are so many credible scientists that have left the IPCC in protest because of the completely unscientific way that their works are reviewed. The IPCC places politics above all else in reviewing what it will publish and not publish and even then gets it wrong a great deal of the time. In just the last few years they have misrepresented the facts and conclusions of at least to prominent scientists who threatened to sue if the IPCC didn’t redact the misleading material. The IPCC is a political body serving political ends and is a joke in the real science of climatology.

Commonsenseparty: “Please take note on the frquency the word “likely”. That’s some science huh?” — That IS science. That is EXACTLY what science is. ALL science is a matter of probabilities. If science shows us something is “likely,” wouldn’t it be kind of stupid to ignore it?

Posted by: jock59801
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NOT according to what you have been saying over and over and over again. A theory is not a hypothesis, or a belief of what is likely to happen. A theory is an explanation of fact and is regarded on the same level as a fact itself. To YOU, a global warming theory, or an evolution theory is even GREATER than a fact. It is rock solid and can’t be disputed

PATRICK: “Over the last decade the earth has experienced a cooling trend and hurricane activity is down. More and more evidence points to the cycle of the sun as having a dramatic impact on earth’s climate – go figure.” – - – Ludicrously clueless comments like this clearly demonstrate when someone is, well, clueless about a topic. First off, cherry picking the last 12-13 years as the definitive time frame is grossly hypocritical considering how often deniers have ranted about how hundreds of years of weather records and up to hundreds of thousands of years worth of ice core studies and ocean sediment studies are supposedly meaningless because those time frames are too short and insignificant relative to the age of the planet. Second, focusing on a recent brief cooling trend in this way as proof that refutes GW depends upon an assumption that warming is supposed to happen every year, and that implies GW theories supposedly make the claim that warming is supposed to occur every year. Well, that is patently FALSE. GW theories DO NOT make any such claim, as in GW theories DO NOT claim that warming is supposed to occur every year. GW theories DO NOT state that brief periodic cooling trends cannot occur. Those are FALSE presumptions deniers fabricate to create a straw man. Even IF we are still in a very mild cooling trend (i.e. mild relative to any previous cooling trend of the last 130 years) since the temperature peak around 98/99 it is statistically meaningless because the SAME THING has happened about 12 times since 1880. Temperatures vary within the overall warming trend. That means there are some periods that experience FASTER warming than others and then a peak occurs. Some periods actually experience cooling for a few years after those peaks. BUT the TREND since 1880 has been steady warming. Just look at graphs of five year averages of global temps. One of the cooling trends even lasted about 15 years if I remember correctly. Thirdly, that last comment about the sun is simpy another dishonest attempt to fabricate another straw man. GW theories DO NOT discount or ignore the impact of the sun. Indeed, the Milankovitch cycles are a very important consideration among the MANY factors/systems/processes that influence climate and the timing, duration, and severity of ice ages.

SPIKE: “That is EXACTLY what science is. ALL science is a matter of probabilities. If science shows us something is “likely,” wouldn’t it be kind of stupid to ignore it? – Posted by: jock59801 – - – NOT according to what you have been saying over and over and over again. A theory is not a hypothesis, or a belief of what is likely to happen. A theory is an explanation of fact and is regarded on the same level as a fact itself. To YOU, a global warming theory, or an evolution theory is even GREATER than a fact. It is rock solid and can’t be disputed.” – - – You are grossly mischaracterizing and oversimplifying what jock meant and what science/theory means. Scientific theories can be FACT in the broad sense AND still have holes in them AND still have varying degrees of uncertainty associated with many if not ALL of the details that are part and parcel to a theory. Furthermore, you are confusing PREDICTIONS made on the basis of a theory and the theory itself. The predictions people make because of the principles of a theory are NOT the same as theory itself. And wrong predictions do not necessarily refute/disprove a theory completely. Wrong predictions and new data from new studies might only make it necessary to modify a theory rather than dump it entirely. The mountains of objective empirical evidence support the broad conclusions of the GW theory even though we can associate varying degrees of uncertainty to many if not most of the details. And it is perfectly reasonable for different predictions to have different levels of confidence. It all depends upon how well we understand different aspects of a theory. Science and scientific theories function around probabilities, not certainties. We can be certain that GW is occurring, and that human activity is contributing to its severity, but not for example about how bad it might get, or how quickly, or how long it might take us to hit a tipping point, or even that we will because we cannot be certain about whether or not natural feedback systems are actually able to overcome our influence. In the long run we are better off assuming nature can’t fix everything we do because if we are wrong then nothing catastrophic will happen. But if we assume that what we do does not matter and do nothing but are then wrong about that a catastrophe will happen. The latter is like choosing to never wear a seatbelt just because one cannot be certain that one will someday be in an accident. That is simply foolish because the potential consequences of complacency are so severe. This is just basic Operational Risk Management.

Jock, when I refer to the science being done and clear, I am referring to the summary statements issued by such well respected science bodies as the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, the Royal Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (among many, many others). All of those bodies have issued summary statements that Global Warming is real, man-made and a threat. I will take their word on science over that of an “editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal” any day.

Posted by: WilliamDawesJr.
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I thought you said the hockey stick graph and the global warming scientists were not saying there is an apocalypse. Now your saying there IS? When you use the word “threat”, that’s an apocalypse! I sure hope this apocalypse occurs and soon! If it doesn’t, you, and the rest of your fearmongers will look pretty silly in the next few years..

We have been in cooling trend now since 1998. Climate is far more complex than the high priests of the new religion CAGW. Other scientists can’t replicate their “so called” science. I would love to get in on the gravy train of cash these high priests get.

“If a surgeon told you that you would very likely die from an elective surgery, would you say, “Well, he just said it was ‘very likely’. Since he’s not certain, I’ll take the chance.”? If thousands of scientists using hundreds (or maybe thousands) of different techniques all see the same warming trend, there’s a reeeeeeeally good chance they are correct. Believe the scientists. They’re smarter than you are.”
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Comparing these fear mongers pretending to be scientists to modern day surgeons or doctors is ludicrous. Doctors have gained knowledge through studying countless thousands and millions of deaths, so in some areas the medical profession is getting pretty accurate. Climate scientists have only seen the most miniscule slice of the earth’s existence and are not yet even to the level of a medieval doctor telling his patient these leeches will purify your blood of its demons and will save you! I have no faith in them, they have not shown themselves to be trustworthy. All while they claim the science is settled. What a joke!

Look no futhur…. “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” is the major clue here. This mix-match of politicains have long be discredited repeatedly for their many incorrect predictions.

Ivan: No, as any even modestly sane person knows, a threat is NOT an apocalypse. Semantics is apparently not your strong suit.

Posted by: WilliamDawesJr.
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A “threat to the planet” is very much an apocalypse. The “plight of the poor polar bears having no home” is very much an apocalypse. When you say “….the last time the Earth’s temperature rose at a rate even approximating the current climb, at the end of the Permian Era, 95% of all life on Earth died”… that is an apocalypse. It is a doom and gloom prediction and is designed to point the accusing finger of blame. For your sake I hope judgement day does come. If it doesn’t, you will look pretty silly.

It is man-made (due to the release of greenhouse gasses, principally carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution); and a threat to our continued existence (the last time the Earth’s temperature rose at a rate even approximating the current climb, at the end of the Permian Era, 95% of all life on Earth died)____________I had a chance to look at the graph you presented one time. I could not help but notice how the CO2 rate always rose AFTER the average temperature of he earth rose. If there is one thing I know about cause and effect, the cause must come BEFORE the effect, not after. If I wanted to prove that a new brand of bug spray kills cockroaches better than any other, I would have a hard time proving this is the cockroaches died before I sprayed the spray. People would conclude something ELSE killed them.

Meab: “global warming STOPPED in 1995.”

Except that it didn’t.

Genealogymaster: 1998 was an unusually warm year, even in an overall warming trend, But 2002 was just as warm, 2005, 2007 and 2009 were warmer still, and 2010 set a new record. (Source: Goddard Spaceflight Center GISS Surface Temperature Analysis). This is what you call a “cooling trend”?

Posted by: WilliamDawesJr
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You said yourself the average temperature of the earth dropped to 58.1 deg F. It was 59 deg. F. in 1988. I would call hat is a cooling trend.

Ivan: You are confusing the normal, natural linkage between carbon dioxide and temperature with the current manmade linkage. In the normal, natural course of events the variations in the Earth’s orbit, the Milankovitch cycles, initiate a warming of the Earth. This in turn starts a positive feedback mechanism where the warmer oceans can absorb less carbon dioxide from the air, and in fact release some of their current supply (for the same reason that warm soda goes flat). This leads to a warmer Earth which leads to more carbon dioxide release in a positive feedback linkage. That’s the natural occurrence. But, as anyone can see, it doesn’t matter which process starts the cycle. The fact that warming has initiated the cycle in the past when the only driver was natural variations DOES NOT MEAN that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will not raise the temperature and initiate the feedback loop. And that is exactly what the scientific community has found to be the case in the present instance. So, do I want to take their word for it or take the word of someone who can’t tell the difference between a naturally driven process and an artificial one? Do I want to take the word of a group of people who make the same ridiculous charges years after they’ve been disproven? Do I want to take the word of people who can’t even tell the difference between a warming and cooling trend? Do I want to take the word of people who claim that a one-half of one-tenth of one percent cyclical variation in the solar constant is enough to drive a century long steady rise in the Earth’s temperature when that solar variation represents absolutely no change in normal solar activity? Read back through all of the posts in response to this article. Has any denier actually cited a single verifiable, let alone reliable source for their childish accusations?

PATRICK FARGO: “Evaluating 4 billion years of weather from less than 50 years of observation is ridiculous.” – - – NO, the ONLY thing ridiculous here is the pathetically inaccurate and dishonest mischaracterization you present. GW theory is evaluating current climate by using decades of observation of glacier melt, AND decades of observation of changes to the ice caps, AND hundreds of years of weather observation, AND hundreds of years of coral growth studies, AND thousands of years of tree ring growth studies, AND thousands to tens of thousands of years of lake sediment and ocean sediment studies, AND hundreds of thousands of years of ocean sediment and ice core sample studies. Either you have ZERO understanding of this issue or zero standards for intellectual honesty.

Ivan: You are confusing the normal, natural linkage between carbon dioxide and temperature with the current manmade linkage. In the normal, natural course of events the variations in the Earth’s orbit, the Milankovitch cycles, initiate a warming of the Earth……

Posted by: WilliamDawesJr
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These were the graphs you yourself showed TellItLikeItIs. I’m sure you showed BOTH types of graphs and BOTH showed the CO2 rising AFTER the temperature rises.

Even when it comes to diseases of the human body, the cause has to come BEFORE the effect. If a person has the flu, the flu virus has to be in the body BEFORE the flu occurs, not after. If a person has cancer, whatever caused the cancer has to be there before the cancer starts, not after.

Ivan: One more time, since you seem to have a really hard time with the obvious. The fact that in NATURAL cycles the CO2-temperature feedback cycle has been initiated by temperature excursions does NOT mean that it CANNOT be initiated by CO2 increases. The current CO2 increase is clearly driven by man – an increase of 45% in a century, and clearly proceeds and drives the subsequent temperature increase.

Jeeze Spike, Are you that obtuse? Yes, there was a TEMPORARY drop in the Earth’s average surface temperature after the unusually warm year, 1998, but there was NEVER an overall cooling trend other than such statistical aberrations. Fine – you can claim that I said the Earth’s temperature dropped. But if you do so, you should, if you are going to be intellectually honest, point out that said decrease was TEMPORARY, and that the Earth’s average surface temperature has risen steadily, both before and after that aberration. Do I expect such intellectual honesty from you? In a ward – NO.

Spike, and your alter ego, Ivan, According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 2010 is the warmest year ever recorded. Yes, warmer than 1998. I’ll keep it simple for you since neither of you seem capable of reading graph or interpreting numerical data.