Why don't you knock off with the "glowby" crap, Razd, and use just one name?
LOL, sorry my paranoid friend it ain't so. While I am enjoying glowby's replies it isn't me. I just dropped in to show you a video on the sea ice (not ice cap):
Please feel free to compare that (temporary) high point at 2014 to ALL the low points before 2005 and get back to me on that expanding sea ice thingy.
One thing we do know is that the polar jet stream — a fast river of wind up where jets fly that circumnavigates the northern hemisphere — has been doing some odd things in recent years.
Rather than circling in a relatively straight path, the jet stream has meandered more in north-south waves. In the west, it’s been bulging northward, arguably since December 2013 — a pattern dubbed the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge by meteorologists. In the east, we’ve seen its southern-dipping counterpart, which I call the Terribly Tenacious Trough. (See picture, below.)
Slowing, drunken path
The jet stream is a dastardly complex creature, and figuring out what makes it tick has challenged atmospheric scientists since it was discovered about 75 years ago. Even more elusive is figuring out how climate change will affect it.
Jet streams exist because of differences in air temperature. In the case of the polar jet stream, which is responsible for most of the weather we experience around the middle-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, it’s the cold Arctic butting against warmer areas to the south that drives it. (A more in-depth explanation can be found here.) Anything that affects that temperature difference will affect the jet stream.
This is where climate change comes in: the Arctic is warming much faster than elsewhere. That Arctic/mid-latitude temperature difference, consequently, is getting smaller. And the smaller differential in temperatures is causing the west-to-east winds in the jet to weaken.
Strong jets tend to blow straight west to east; weaker jets tend to wander more in a drunken north/south path, increasing the likelihood of wavy patterns like the one we’ve seen almost non-stop since last winter.
When the jet stream’s waves grow larger, they tend to move eastward more slowly, which means the weather they generate also moves more slowly, creating more persistent weather patterns.
‘Stuck’ weather patterns
To study the effects of Arctic change on weather patterns, we have good measurements of atmospheric temperatures and winds going back to the late 1970s, when satellites started providing data, and pretty good measurements back to the late 1940s.
Our own new work, published last month in Environmental Research Letters, uses a variety of new metrics to show that the jet stream is becoming wavier and that rapid Arctic warming is playing a role. If these results are confirmed, then we’ll see our weather patterns become more persistent.
Would you not agree that changing the jet stream changes weather patterns around the globe? Some areas become hotter (and dryer) while others become colder (and wetter)?
Please note that the brown areas are significantly warmer than normal while the blue areas are significantly colder than normal. Which do you think is more pervasive -- hotter than normal or colder than normal?
Perhaps that's not an accurate description of the math. Nonetheless, an increase of 0.55 degrees C corresponds to approximately a 1 degree F increase in temperature. I have no idea if that is what marc9000 actually meant.
So how much difference can a degree of warming make? In the N American arctic permafrost is melting ...
There are deposits of Methane Clathrate in the arctic (N. America and Siberia) and in deep ocean just off the continental shelf ...
Methane clathrate (CH4•5.75H2O), also called methane hydrate, hydromethane, methane ice, fire ice, natural gas hydrate, or gas hydrate, is a solid clathrate compound (more specifically, a clathrate hydrate) in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice.[1] Originally thought to occur only in the outer regions of the Solar System, where temperatures are low and water ice is common, significant deposits of methane clathrate have been found under sediments on the ocean floors of the Earth.[2]
We know now of seven craters in the Arctic area. Five are directly on the Yamal peninsula, one in Yamal Autonomous district, and one is on the north of the Krasnoyarsk region, near the Taimyr peninsula," Bogoyavlensky told Anna Liesowska of The Siberian Times. We have exact locations for only four of them. The other three were spotted by reindeer herders. But I am sure that there are more craters on Yamal, we just need to search for them. ...
One crater was thoroughly explored last November, and preliminary results seem to suggest that gas emissions were responsible for creating these holes. It is likely that pockets of natural gas that had been trapped in the soil due to permafrost began to increase in pressure as the ground thawed. At a certain point, there is an explosion of soil that releases that pressure. While this wouldn't be much of a problem in a remote area, this could be extremely disastrous if one occurred under a school or other populated region.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, a devoted climate change denier, tossed a snowball at someone on the Senate floor today as he tried to debunk climate change.
In case we had forgotten because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair: You know what this is? It's a snowball and that just from outside here so it's very, very cold out. Very unseasonal, he said.
So, Mr. President, catch this, Inhofe, R-Okla., said on the Senate floor, tossing the snowball to someone off-screen as he tried to suppress a smile.
We hear the perpetual headline that 2014 has been the warmest year on record but now the script has flipped and I think it's important since we hear it over and over and over, Inhofe, 80, said. As we can see with the snowball out there, this is today. This is reality.
Yes, the East Coast of the U.S. is super cold right now (I'm typing this from frozen NYC), but the reality is that January was the 2nd hottest on record.
That purple spot is where Senator Inhofe chose to make his snowball -- clearly not an average condition on earth ...
quote:
After Senator James Inhofe trolled the entire Senate with his snowball on Thursday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse stepped up to the mic with his fact snowplow to clear away the mess.
So much win.
There's a transcript of Sheldon's little fact slam if you are interested. (That's my senator)
September 25th, 2015 polls on climate change scientist polls
"Using responses from nearly 700 biophysical scientists," a new survey "finds that approximately 92 percent of them believe that human-caused climate change is really happening," according to the Washington Post (September 25, 2015), reporting on J. S. Carlton, Rebecca Perry-Hill, Matthew Huber, and Linda S. Prokopy's "The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists," published in Environmental Research Letters.
Asked "When compared with pre-1800's levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?" 93.6% of respondents indicated that they thought temperatures have risen, 2.1% indicated that they thought temperatures had remained relatively constant, 0.6% indicated that they thought temperatures had fallen, and 3.7% indicated they had no opinion or did not know.
When respondents who indicated that they thought that mean global temperatures have risen when compared to pre-1800s levels were asked, "Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?" 98.2% agreed. Multiplying 98.2% and 93.6%, Carlton and his colleagues concluded, "91.9% of scientists surveyed believed in anthropogenic climate change."
The researchers concluded, "there is a general consensus among biophysical scientists across the United States that (1) climate change is occurring, (2) humans are contributing to it, and (3) climate science is a trustworthy, mature, and credible discipline. Scientists who continue to claim otherwise are operating outside of the consensus, not just of climate scientists, but also of scientists as a whole."
... and Regulated Monopoly Utilities where their income is based on their investment in infrastructure and that could be used as safe retirement investments by the average person.
Make that not-for-profit utilities and hospitals any other business the serves basic needs for people (food? housing?) and I'm in. Make it so corporations have to share profits with workers as they do for share-holders, with workers and shareholders voting (one vote per person) on wages, electing board of directors and leaders (ie democratic companies instead of autocratic) and I'm in.
Become a world leader in science and technology again, by promoting green science (renewable energy, waste reduction, full cycle cost analysis including waste disposal and environmental cleanup) and promoting social reforms like democracy and equality and justice.
Become a world leader in education and learning by providing free community college education to those who want it, and full ride scholarships for higher education in return for commitments to return that learning with community service.
Let startup companies go tax free for 3 years (average time to become viable) and only tax self-employed people as employees ...
Researchers who study the Earth's climate create models to test their assumptions about the causes and trajectory of global warming. Around the world there are 28 or so research groups in more than a dozen countries who have written61 climate models. Each takes a slightly different approach to the elements of the climate system, such as ice, oceans, or atmospheric chemistry.
The computer model that generated the results for this graphic is called "ModelE2," and was created byNASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which has been a leader in climate projections for a generation. ModelE2 contains something on the order of 500,000 lines of code, and is run on a supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Go through each of the graphics to see. Sorry, I was not able to capture the images, as they are active.
Your're right. Only a moron would think that. And only a moron would consider that anyone who understands the science and the facts of AGW would think that.
Especially when you look at the data presented in the Message 245 link, which covers *all* the purported\supposed "alternative" explanations of the deniers AND all the anthropomorphic causes and compare them to the observed data:
(1) sum natural causes ~negligible effect (2) sum human causes ~100% effect
So one would have to be a moron to continue to argue natural causes are having a significant effect on the data.
Note that they include aerosols which were banned to prevent ozone depletion and their reduction in use leads to negative warming trends -- evidence that we CAN affect the results with appropriate action.
My advice to those in fossil fuel industries is to get out and get involved in alternatives. My house is now grid-free from electricity, and by next year I plan to be off gas (converting my heating system to electric hot water powered by my solar panels).
Every day that passes just brings more confirmation of global climate change, sadly, it seems, at an increasing rate.
So when does the cognitive dissonance bubble burst? What catastrophe will be needed to make people sit up and listen?
I paid $15,000.00 to have a solar panel array installed on my roof.
This will save me $750.00 per year on electricity costs (at current rates, which I expect to rise with time). That is a return on investment of 5% -- better than you can get from most other forms of investment.
The government grants & tax breaks mean ~1/3 of the cost of the installation will be recovered, increasing my return to 7.5% per year.
My current gas bill is ~$850.00/year for house heating (radiant hot water) and hot water. Converting to an electric water heater (which gets hot enough to use for radiant floor heat -- you don't want to scald your feet) means an additional saving (for an additional cost of ~$800.00 installed), and would bring my return on investment to $1600.00/$15800.00 = 10% and with the grants and tax cuts it will be $1600.00/$10800.00 = ~15% return. Note that this means you can make this investment with a 2nd mortgage or a home equity loan and still be ahead as long as the interest on the loan is less than the "interest" you realize from reduced utility costs.
Every year I will in effect be getting $1600.00 from the sun. While I do nothing but sit and enjoy it. And this will increase each year as the utility rates go up.
quote: Might these changes interfere with the Global Conveyor Belt? Several lines of evidence indicate that the Global Conveyor Belt in the Northern Atlantic has slowed in recent years. Satellites have monitored sea surface heights all over the world with high precision for over a decade. Because water flows downhill, differences in sea surface heights from place to place indicate the direction and magnitude of currents.
The Labrador Current by this measure has been declining. ...
... Detailed analyses of these data, however, have lead to divergent conclusions: Some investigators believe the contributions of the North Atlantic Oscillation to changes in the Global Conveyor Belt to be large [2], some consider it medium [3], and others believe it to be small [4]. Additional measurements over a longer time should provide more definitive answers about the relationships among currents, temperatures, and pressures in the North Atlantic and other regions.
That was published December 16, 2010, but I thought I saw some recent data on this. [/abe]
I know this is a bare link, but all I can do is take screenshots:
When you add them all together you get a very very very strong match between the model and the observed data, and the only element that significantly adds to the warming is the greenhouse gases. And it would have been worse if we had not banned aerosols.
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