Cold winters caused by global warming

[Still Waters]

It's been a frequent debating point from climate sceptics. Recent cold winders in Britain and Europe, they often say, undermine the case that the world is growing warmer. Scientists have tended to reply that that is to mix up the short-term effects of weather in a particular region with long term climate change, and that the cold winters therefore are of little significance.

But now new research suggests that both are wrong - that the icy weather is indeed evidence of change but that, counterintuitively, it reinforces the case for global warming rather than the reverse.

http://www.telegraph...scientists.html

[praetorian-legio XIII]

Climate changes, always has, always will regardless of what mankind does. If you look at the total time line of this planet, man has occupied it for less than a blink of an eye. Much less. And yet so many buy into idea that we, humankind, could actually effect this planets natural climate cycles. How vain.

And as this is an opinion, please don't respond to this post with any of the sedu scientific mumbo jumbo being forced down our throats by people who only created the fear so they, in the long run, can make more money. For every scientific theory "proving" global warming or climate change(whatever it's being called today) there is an opposite theory that says no, it's not happening. And considered how many papers supporting climate change have been written by left leaning liberal "scientists", that have been proven as either out right incorrect or deliberately falsified.

It seems to me that there are a lot of other things in this world we need to worry about and address. Things we do have control over. Maybe that's the real plan. Bombard us with the fear of climate change so we don't worry or pay attention to the things within our grasp, things and problems that we can affect change in, today.

[Doug1029]

Climate changes, always has, always will regardless of what mankind does. If you look at the total time line of this planet, man has occupied it for less than a blink of an eye. Much less. And yet so many buy into idea that we, humankind, could actually effect this planets natural climate cycles. How vain.

And as this is an opinion, please don't respond to this post with any of the sedu scientific mumbo jumbo being forced down our throats by people who only created the fear so they, in the long run, can make more money. For every scientific theory "proving" global warming or climate change(whatever it's being called today) there is an opposite theory that says no, it's not happening. And considered how many papers supporting climate change have been written by left leaning liberal "scientists", that have been proven as either out right incorrect or deliberately falsified.

It seems to me that there are a lot of other things in this world we need to worry about and address. Things we do have control over. Maybe that's the real plan. Bombard us with the fear of climate change so we don't worry or pay attention to the things within our grasp, things and problems that we can affect change in, today.

In other words: don't bother you with the facts. They only confuse you.

Doug

[Doug1029]

Setting new cold records in the midst of a warmer climate is not as difficult as it sounds. Climate is based on 30-year averages. Monthly average temps have NEVER been more than 0.92 degrees (January 2007) above the 1951-1980 mean, at least as far back as 5/1/1880. The last month to get down to the 1951-1980 average was November 1992.

In 22 years, including most of the current temperature excursion, monthly global average temps have not varied more than 0.92 degrees C. Yet where I live, daily average temps cross that line on almost half the days of the year. What's the difference? Averages. A symmetrical distribution will produce about the same number of observations above the average as it does below. The deniers are trying to make political hay by substituting short-term temperature excursions for climate; trying to use their own definition of climate rather than the standard one. Typical strawman arguments.

So what is really going on? Climate is becoming more variable. Higher highs; lower lows. It's called variance and has a strict mathematical/statistical definition. And it, too, is a measure of climate. If it changes, climate changes, regardless of what the average is doing. And what causes lower lows? Bad weather - storms. Not even more storms, just colder ones.

What is the cause of our "wild weather?" The jury is still out, but early reports are that it is related to the high sea-surface temps in the western Pacific.

What is the real risk from climate change? In the short-run, disruption of agriculture. Many of the world's people already live on the edge and one or two crop failures will push them over it into starvation. In the US, back in the 1960s, we used to carry a three-year reserve of food. But that was the result of government price supports and conservatives in Congress decided to do away with the reserve because it was "WELFARE!" What replaced it was the Farm Bill which replaced subsidies to farmers with welfare for corporations. At any rate, the US' reserve food supply has dwindled to a few days. Without food, we have about three days of civilization left before anarchy takes over. In the short run, the risk from climate change is crop failure and starvation and in an extreme case, collapse of government and democracy.

In the long-run, the risk is ecosystem collapse. We're probably not going to see that during my lifetime. Three hundred years is the shortest estimate I have heard and there are some that go as high as 500 years. One by one we are killing off the things that produce oxygen for us to breathe, things that produce food (like honey bees) and things that filter our water. Right now, the world's ecosystem cannot produce enough fish to supply Omega-3 oils in minimum quantity to every person who might need them. Climate change will accelerate this process.

It's sort of an experiment to see how many things we can break before we break the last one keeping us alive. If you were riding in an airplane and needed a rivet for some project, you could always take one from the plane. But then you need another, and then another. If you keep doing this you will someday remove the one that is keeping the plane in the air. And that's what we're doing with our ecosystems.

Whether you want to call all of these "climate change" or not, is partly a matter of definitions, but climate feeds into all of them. Even terrorism. The Mediterranean Basin has undergone fifteen years of drought. That has caused crop failures, forcing once-independent farmers into the cities where they can't find work and expect their governments to take care of them - what other choice is there? But the burden of thousands or even millions of refugees is way beyond most governments. When the governments don't do anything, the revolutionaries move in, explaining that it's really because the wealthy capitalists are taking everything for themselves (Doesn't matter whether it's true or not.). Or the Shiites or the Jews or the Sunnis or the .... Gradually governments are unable to cope with the threats and foreign invaders move in - and the locals, predictably, turn on them. Sound familiar?

But look at what we were 300 years ago. The technological change over the last three centuries will be nothing compared to the next three. Can we imagine a world that doesn't include climate controls? I think we'll pull out of the climate crisis. The only question left is whether we can do it in time to save ourselves.

Doug

Edited October 28, 2014 by Doug1029

[Ashotep]

Global warming will make the refugee problem worse but I think we have taken on about all the refugees we can already. It loading down the systems of most countries. There will be a day when doors will have to be closed to new refugees and immigrants from third world countries. What are governments going to do let their own people starve trying to take care of other countries people that decided we must keep having a dozen kids and we need to have some in your country for that anchor baby foot in the door. I think that needs to stop.

Of course if you stopped letting refugees in the UN would have a fit. Possibly because many of the refugees are coming from their own countries.