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Science

New Satellite Data Confirms Global Warming 153

Posted by michael from the spf-5000 dept.
starannihilator writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have analyzed satellite data using a new and more accurate method (using channel 4 on the Microwave Sounding Unit satellite) to show that the troposphere has been warming faster than the Earth's surface for more than two decades. Nature reports that previous interpretations (using MSU channel 2) did not indicate such dramatic tropospheric warming because the data were compromised by stratospheric conditions. For years, the debate over global warming raged largely as a result of an incongruency between trends in surface and tropospheric temperatures. The new data gained by MSU channel 4 are consistent with the surface temperature's rising trends and indicate that global warming is, in fact, occuring in the troposphere. Read the full article in Nature, or similar stories in the Seattle Times and Newswise."
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New Satellite Data Confirms Global Warming More

New Satellite Data Confirms Global Warming

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  • Global warming or global cooling (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jgardn ( 539054 ) <jgardn@alumni.washington.edu> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @01:37PM (#9075349) Homepage Journal
    I've changed my view on global warming. I used to think the whole earth couldn't warm or cool, but it would stay the same over time. Now I believe that the earth does warm and cool over significant variations. So we are in a global warming phase, if the toposphere is absolute proof (which we can't be sure about.)

    The question is: What can we do about it?
    The answer is: Unfortunately, not much. If we cut all the world's emissions of greenhouse gasses drastically in half, that wouldn't account for the other variations responsible for global warming like a more active sun or just the phase of the weather patterns on earth or the temperature of the sea. I have to think about it this way: If humanity did all it could to cool or warm the earth, what would we accomplish? The answer is that the earth is so huge and so complicated that we can't predict whether our actions would cause havoc or remedy. I mean, we could spend trillions of dollars on a system to cool the troposphere only to find out that by doing so we are causing more hurricanes and such.

    The earth is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems for the most part are unpredictable. A variation of a few hundredths of a degree in one place in the world can be responsible for a hurricane in another.

    • Re:Global warming or global cooling (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hak1du ( 761835 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @01:59PM (#9075546) Journal
      The earth is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems for the most part are unpredictable. A variation of a few hundredths of a degree in one place in the world can be responsible for a hurricane in another.

      Just because some aspects of weather are chaotic doesn't mean nothing can be predicted. Global average temperatures don't go up or down independent of any contributing factors: ice coverage, atmospheric composition, humidity and other factors all have well-defined effects. There are some relationships we don't understand yet, but that doesn't make those relationships chaotic.

      We can be certain that if we continue on our current path, growing emissions of greenhouse gases, we will change the climate dramatically some time this century. That's simple physics: changing the earth's energy balance significantly must lead to changes in something on earth. What we don't know yet is whether it will kick in a new ice age (which would be negative feedback), lead to gradual warming (no feedback), or runaway greenhouse effects (positive feedback). Even if negative feedback would magically keep the temperature constant, something (vegetation, ice cover, etc.) would have to make up for change in energy balance. But no matter what the change, it will end up being costly.

      • Re:Global warming or global cooling (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @02:21PM (#9075780) Journal
        We can be certain that if we continue on our current path, growing emissions of greenhouse gases, we will change the climate dramatically some time this century.

        The thing is, we can also be certain that even if every last human keels over dead, taking all technology with them, that the climate will change significantly over the next century.

        Already I've noticed a climate shift starting in my area (Michigan)... we're returning to the type of winters we had 30 or 40 years ago, which had a lot more snow and cold weather then the winters we saw in the 90's, which typically had one hell of a snow-storm... but only that one, with temperatures reaching into the 50s sometimes in mid-December.

        Human influence? Natural processes? The only answer is yes. Worth panicking over? I'm inclined to wait until something actually bad happens before panicking. (Note that "panicking" isn't isomorphic to "doing something"; I'm in favor of pre-emptive environmentalism, where on general principles we try to reduce our impact to the environment as much as possible. I don't see panicking as a valid reason to do anything, though.)
        • I don't see panicking as a valid reason to do anything, though.

          The only thing I am panicking over is will we be able to get the US administration to give a shit about the environment. We have seen enough evidence to the contrary that I believe this to be sufficient reasoning for a *panic*.

          • Don't forget the rest of the world (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Spamalamadingdong ( 323207 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @03:36PM (#9076544) Homepage Journal
            The only thing I am panicking over is will we be able to get the US administration to give a shit about the environment.
            The rest of the world has ~20 times the population of the USA, and is trying to get what the USA has got. China is already using more coal every year than the USA (which burned about 22 quadrillion BTU worth in 2002) and has just passed Japan as the world's second-largest consumer of oil. It's not enough to give a shit about the environment; we have to make sure they give a shit too, or at least give a shit about what the industrialized world will do if they don't act like it.

            This means China needs to radically boost its efficiency (not hard even with current technology), Indonesia has to prevent the drainage and burning of peat bogs, and all that. If things there continue as they have been going, the USA could cut emissions to zero and still not make things better.

            This also means that the Kyoto system of quotas is fundamentally broken. It will not do to give each nation a quota; each emitter of CO2 and other climate-changing gases has to have an incentive to prevent those emissions, and the competitive advantage should go to those producers and nations which are doing it the best. This means something like a unified system of carbon taxes.

            • the USA could cut emissions to zero and still not make things better

              If an economic powerhouse (heh) like the USA goes zero-emissions, it's likely the technology would be cheap enough for use in developing countries as well. Deals like Kyoto push the task of developing this technology onto wealthy countries that can afford it; without them such technology won't be developed until economics force it to be, by which time <tinfoil hat=on> you have large, poor, but nuclear armed countries fighting over re

              • If an economic powerhouse (heh) like the USA goes zero-emissions, it's likely the technology would be cheap enough for use in developing countries as well.

                But they won't do it until they have to. In the mean time, the industrial countries (or their industries) have to pay for the new technology while being undercut in price (WTO) by industries based in countries which don't have to.

                This could actually increase emissions, as producers shut down operations in industrial nations in order to move them to co

              • "If an economic powerhouse (heh) like the USA goes zero-emissions, it's likely the technology would be cheap enough for use in developing countries as well."

                You know what would be even cheaper, though? Doing nothing and not paying anything at all, in which case you could undercut American production costs (probably even without accounting for cheaper labor).
            • China is already using more coal every year than the USA

              Handwaving. You have to look at total emissions:

              CO2 emissions per year (tons)

              China
              2,893,000,000 (2.3 / capita)
              USA
              5,410,000,000 (20.1 / capita)

              source: wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

              To say that China needs to boost their efficiency rather than the US is ridiculous looking at those figures.

              It's not enough to give a shit about the environment; we have to make sure they give a shit too, or at least give a shit about what the industrialized world will do if they don't a
              • To say that China needs to boost their efficiency rather than the US is Republican looking at those figures.

                You used the wrong word. I made the edit for you. You're welcome.

                • Blaming the AIDS epidemic on Reagan??

                  IIRC, the infections started when Carter was still president, albeit the nature of the illness didn't make itself clear until the Reagan years. Perhaps the most effective thing that Reagan could have done would have been to restrict the behaviors that lead to the spread of the disease - prevention is way easier than a cure.

                  If you're really serious about putting the blame for an epidemic on a US President - then focus your wrath on Woodrow Wilson for the influenza epide

                  • IIRC, the infections started when Carter was still president, albeit the nature of the illness didn't make itself clear until the Reagan years. Perhaps the most effective thing that Reagan could have done would have been to restrict the behaviors that lead to the spread of the disease - prevention is way easier than a cure.

                    You right-wingers spew some idiot propaganda, but that really takes the cake. The most effective thing Reagan could have done was to treat it as a serious public health matter instead o
                    • Look at how Legionaire's Disease was handled when it infected a handful of white, heterosexual people.

                      A Google search indicated the first known outbreak was 221 infected, and IIRC 43 deaths. The same search indicates that over 10,000 cases of Legionnaire's disease occur every year in the US. The main reason for concern was the sudden outbreak - prompting fears that this was a very communicable disease (it wasn't).

                      One other thing to keep in mind is that Legionnaire's is caused by bacteria - which is a wh



                    • You don't know what you're talking about. The original outbreak of Legionairres in Philadelphia was confined to around a dozen old, white men. The government response was a stark contrast to the response (Reagan's response) to the AIDS epidemic.


                    • You're rewriting history to suit your own needs. The first outbreak of Legionnaires was an isolated event amongst some convention-goers. Conversely, AIDS (or GRID as it was originally known) showed up in multiple places at once - always a very bad sign.
                      It doesn't change the fact that the government response to Legionnaires was swift and capable. The government response to AIDS was ... nothing.
                      The Reagan administration, like the current administration, was heavily influenced by the radical right and had no i
              • What he probably means is that though the average American release 9 times as much CO2 as the average Chinese, that's ok, because they're 20 times as rich, so they're "entitled".

                The arrogance of that statement you can evaluate yourself.

                • I see you'd rather put words in somebody's mouth than ask them what they meant.

                  If it takes the Chinese twice as much CO2 to produce a dollar's worth of goods as it takes the USA, is it better for the world to have goods produced in China? China uses antiquated technology in many of its primary industries, but makes up for the inefficiencies with cheap labor. Many Chinese cities are terribly polluted from the byproducts of coal combustion without pollution controls (reminiscent of the Soviet bloc); many hom

                  • We're both rigth I think.

                    You are offcourse rigth that much of the industry in China is very inefficient, in the sense that it produces a lot of pollution for every dollar-worth of product. Improving this would have benefits both for China and the rest of the world.

                    On the other hand, there is something that stinks a little when you over and over and over get to hear people from USA state that the "real" problem is the inefficient industries in China, while at the same time having the highest CO2-pro-capi

                    • On the other hand, there is something that stinks a little when you over and over and over get to hear people from USA state that the "real" problem is the inefficient industries in China, while at the same time having the highest CO2-pro-capita of the entire world, 9 times that of China, for example.

                      Note that those figures prove that the USA produces 2.2 times the GNP per unit of CO2 than China does. So exactly what is the problem as you see it:

                      1. That some people in the USA refuse to allow a double stan
                    • Ok. I'll try to clarify.

                      Assume that our atmosphere has a finite capacity for absorbing various pollutants, such as for example CO2.

                      Now, I don't know how you see it, but to me it seems sensible that the atmosphere of our planet belongs equally to all people of the planet.

                      Thus, I don't see it as fair, or logical, that an American gets to "spend" 10 times as much of this, our shared, finite resource, as someone born in a poorer country.

                      A more fair way of doing it would be, for example:

                      • Decide what the
                    • This guy [slashdot.org] already covered a lot of the territory I'm about to go through, so read his post first for background.

                      Divide this amount equally between all countries according to population. (ok, I'm willing to consider the possibility that there should be sligth changes to this basic idea, for example somewhat higher quotas to people in colder climates to compensate for needed heating.)

                      Your proposal would have all kinds of undesirable (and even evil) consequences.

                      • It encourages third-world governments to i
                    • You can jump and scream all you want.

                      It does not change the fact that when certain countries pollute much more than what is sustainable, it degrades a shared resource.

                      I see your point about population-changes though, it is true that it is probably not a good idea to encourage poor countries to have as large a population as possible.

                      What do you think ? When an island-nation in the pacific which pollutes very little still disappears under the waves because other, far richer nations pollute enormously m

                    • What do you think ? When an island-nation in the pacific which pollutes very little still disappears under the waves because other, far richer nations pollute enormously much more, are they then "unproductive rent-seekers" when they consider it fair that those responsible for the damage also cough up to cover it ? That's a fairly common principle in law...

                      Nope, they're victims of a tort. The common-law concept of torts is sufficient to give the victims grounds to sue for damages, such as money to buy lan

            • The previous post is absolutely correct about Kyoto system of quotas being broken. This is for the fundamental reason that there are no quotas for most nations on the earth.

              The flaws in Kyoto are deeper than this though. Kyoto refused to consider CO2 "Sinks." This is because the USA is a big CO2 Sink because of its vast agriculture and vast forrests, something that for all practical purposes other nations don't even have.

              Another failing of Kyoto is the failure to consider "Final Product" efficiencies.

          • The only thing I am panicking over is will we be able to get the US administration to give a shit about the environment. We have seen enough evidence to the contrary that I believe this to be sufficient reasoning for a *panic*.

            While I agree that we should try to be as environmentally friendly as possible (face it, breathing in all that smoggy air in the Inland Empire sucks), we simply don't know what is causing it. There is almost no doubt the Earth is warming, but the question still remains, why?

            The las
        • I'm inclined to wait until something actually bad happens ~.

          And that, my friend, is why we're all screwed. By the time something "bad" happens, it will be a little too late---much like hearing the ambulance a few blocks away, but not pulling over until he's right on your arse.

        • The thing is, we can also be certain that even if every last human keels over dead, taking all technology with them, that the climate will change significantly over the next century.

          That's a bad argument. If you have two factors, they may cancel out, but they may also combine. Altogether adding the manmade factors to the natural ones makes bigger climate change more likely, and that is bad.

          Maybe we are doomed as a species to be killed off by climate change anyway. But emitting large amounts of greenhou
          • No, people are insisting that I panic now on only slightly more then hearsay and conjecture. People like you who lecture are on the wrong side of rationality, whether you like it or not. I make no apologies for refusing to be manipulated by the current "in" trend, to the exclusion of using my sense.
            • No, people are insisting that I panic now on only slightly more then hearsay and conjecture.

              Nobody insists that you "panic". Frankly, I don't care what you think or do as long as you reduce your use of fossil fuel.

              People like you who lecture are on the wrong side of rationality, whether you like it or not.

              You seem to be under the misconception that the right way to act is to act rationally. Of course, taking precautions to prevent climate change isn't rational. The rational thing for each individua
        • Already I've noticed a climate shift starting in my area (Michigan)... we're returning to the type of winters we had 30 or 40 years ago, which had a lot more snow and cold weather then the winters we saw in the 90's, which typically had one hell of a snow-storm... but only that one, with temperatures reaching into the 50s sometimes in mid-December.

          Um...No? I've heard several people talk about how harsh this winter (and last) was and it wasn't. Take a look at the historical data and it wasn't anything ou
    • You're either young or you don't get outside much. Believe me, I noticed changes in the 1970's.

      To quote a semi-famous philosopher,

      'You can observe a lot just by watching'.

    • Re:Global warming or global cooling (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mad Quacker ( 3327 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @02:06PM (#9075615) Homepage

      The question is: What can we do about it?
      The answer is: Unfortunately, not much.
      ...

      The earth is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems for the most part are unpredictable. A variation of a few hundredths of a degree in one place in the world can be responsible for a hurricane in another.


      First you say we are powerless over it because we have so little effect, and then you say a variation of a few hundreths of a degree can cause a hurricane. Of course it's so complex it also requires 'more study', and by the tone of you comments you seem to suggest that it will be impossible to predict nature.

      Which is it? People: don't mistake this for anything other than it is, a bad ostrich immitation and an excuse to continue current habits because it is profitable - to the body and to the wallet.

      • Although I always agree that everything requires "more study", I do agree with this poster's assessment of the situation. It is by no means contradictory to say that we can't change what is happening and that the Earth is a chaotic system. Worse yet, the Earth is a chaotic system for which we don't know all the variables, let alone how to change them.

        This doesn't mean that conservation of the environment isn't a noble cause, because it is, I strongly dislike the smog here in Phoenix driving to work in th
        • You ever give any thought about the fact that that same "system" if left alone would make the place you live a barren wasteland known as a desert?

          Pump in a few million gallons of water a year and it becomes habitable land. And now you're worried about the air pollution?

          Phoenix is a REALLY bad example of trying to get back to some sort of natural ecosystem; if you did that, you definitely wouldn't be there in the first place.
          • Ah, you didn't read the post. Phoenix was an example of a place that has air polution and the cause of environmentallism -- nothing to do with the choatic system mention above. People are talking about what would essentially be terraforming on our planet, which I believe would be a terrible idea.

    • Order out of chaos (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Spamalamadingdong ( 323207 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @03:44PM (#9076647) Homepage Journal
      Let me reverse the order of these two sentences to make my point:
      A variation of a few hundredths of a degree in one place in the world can be responsible for a hurricane in another.... The earth is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems for the most part are unpredictable.
      You confuse chaos with randomness. They are not the same; a chaotic system is contrained by a chaotic attractor, a multi-dimensional surface in the N-space of physically possible states on which the current state is found. You cannot predict whether it will rain or shine two weeks from today, but you can predict with very high reliability how much rain you'll get because we know the characteristics which are due to the attractor.

      Which brings me to my next point: if you change the characteristics of the attractor, the behavior of the system can change radicaly in a very sudden fashion. I fear that this is what we are doing with climate change, and we may suffer huge damages from the results.

    • jgardn (539054) sez: "The earth is a chaotic system, and chaotic systems for the most part are unpredictable. A variation of a few hundredths of a degree in one place in the world can be responsible for a hurricane in another."

      You have an extremely warped view of nonlinear system dynamics. Chaotic systems can be characterized and the state at a given time in the future stated with a degree of certaintly. Decreasing, yes, but still based on probability.

      Just because the butterfly exists does not mean the bu

    • Chaotic? Exactly! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ying Hu ( 704950 )
      Chaos now has a relatively precise meaning in science - that very small, perhaps nearly invisible, initial conditions can produce, under some conditions, disproportionately large divergences in outcomes. But, if understood, this can make a system more, not less, predictable, for there are patterns to the kinds of changes that happen. The weather pattern over the earth is not well-understood, by any means, but we know at least two things - mankind is doing things that, theoretically, could produce a warmer

  • Say what you will..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Giant Ape Skeleton ( 638834 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @01:40PM (#9075370) Homepage

    I blame the sun!

    :-P

  • insert trendy anti-scientific comment here... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    since all storys about environmental degredation get plugged up with rediculously weakly argued and unsubstantiated anti-global warming comments modded +5, why not just waste your mod points here instead?
    • Now, the hypothosis of global warming has not been irrefutably proven and certain discrepencies have not been accounted for.

      For instance, A volcanic erruption can cause so much more so called "greenhouse" gasses to be released into the atmosphere than all the polutants man has expelled since the first machine of industry.

      Secondly, there are periodic climate changes throughout earth's history [tigtail.org] that have still yet to be explained. Also, the depletion of the green house gasses has not been proven to be solel

      • Re:insert trendy anti-scientific comment here... (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Now, the hypothosis of global warming has not been irrefutably proven and certain discrepencies have not been accounted for.

        first off, very rarely does science abolutely proove anything, but you can draw very good conclusions in the face of overwealming evidence, which is what we have in this case.

        For instance, A volcanic erruption can cause so much more so called "greenhouse" gasses to be released into the atmosphere than all the polutants man has expelled since the first machine of industry.

        • even that were so this study shows that the volcanic eruption will cause plants on earth to remove MORE co2 that was put up by the volcano and hence has a net negative effect on the ammountn of co2 in the atmosphere.

          So I am to believe that "manmade" CO2 is different than Volcanic "natural" CO2. Interesting... incomprehensible but interesting.
      • For your article from late 2001, I'll give you an article [nasa.gov] from the very same agency.

        Then, how about looking at the various timescales?
        Yes, earth has been warmer in the past, and over the 2-4billion years of its existance, there are longer periods warmer. Imagine the universe is only 3K warm. Great. What does that mean for our situation at hand?

        Now have a look at the very same link you provided, which is probably more of our concern, the time of human civilisation. As you can see,
        the climate has been actua

      • Re:insert trendy anti-scientific comment here... (Score:5, Informative)

        by CryBaby ( 679336 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:01PM (#9078490)
        Now, the hypothosis of global warming has not been irrefutably proven and certain discrepencies have not been accounted for.
        What, in your view, constitutes irrefutable proof? Worldwide famine, skyrocketing cancer rates (oh wait, we already have that problem [who.int])? Waiting for "irrefutable proof", in this case, basically means waiting until it's too late. Also, I don't understand why the prospect of cleaner air, water and soil is so terrible that we need to put it off until the last possible moment - but that's just me and maybe I haven't listened to enough Rush Limbaugh.
        For instance, A volcanic erruption can cause so much more so called "greenhouse" gasses to be released into the atmosphere than all the polutants man has expelled since the first machine of industry.
        Not surprisingly, NASA disagrees with you [nasa.gov] and claims that, over the next 50 years, all naturally occurring greenhouse gasses combined (that includes volcanic eruptions) will account for a 0.5C temperature increase compared to a 1.0-2.0C increase if man-made emissions continue unchecked. This article [eurekalert.org] provides more detail on the Mt. Pinatubo eruption (often cited by anti-environmentalists as proof that natural phenomena dwarf human activity in relation to global warming) and, like the NASA research, concludes that volcanic eruptions acually serve to *decrease* global warming.

        If any actual research backs up your claim in any way, please share it with the rest of us.

        Since there is no explanation for the past trend nor the fact that looking even further back the entire planet had a higher median temperature. as is evident by the many hypothosis that the thunder lizards may have died due to an ice age... I don't really have to point out there weren't humans then to contribute to that natural disaster that caused a dramatic shift in the planet's climate.
        What "dramatic shift" are you talking about? The dinosaur article mentions a temperature change of 10C over a period of 7 million years. That's a shift of a little over one millionth of a degree per year - not very dramatic if you ask me. Current climate research predicts the same amount of change over a period of several hundred to a few thousand years. Taking the more mild predictions, that means our climate is changing about 2000 times faster than the "dramatic shift" you refer to.

        Here is an article [bbc.co.uk] about a National Academy of Sciences' report provided at the request of the Bush administration. It states plainly that "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."

        Here is a paper [agu.org] from the American Geophysical Union stating that "human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate... scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century."

        Anyway, I could go on with pages of links from universities and scientific organizations who are increasingly making unqualified statements that, yes, the tons of pollution we pump into the air, water, and soil on a daily basis are having negative effects - including global warming. Most of the opposition to these views can be found on the websites of right-wing political think tanks, individual right wing politicians, and in "opinion" pieces with no links to actual scientific research.


        • What, in your view, constitutes irrefutable proof? Worldwide famine, skyrocketing cancer rates (oh wait, we already have that problem)?

          From the article cited as evidence for "skyrocketing cancer rates":


          The predicted sharp increase in new cases - from 10 million new cases globally in 2000, to 15 million in 2020 - will mainly be due to steadily ageing populations in both developed and developing countries

          That is, cancer rates are predicted to go up primarily due to the fact that people are living lon

      • Mod parent down (Score:5, Informative)

        by Pentagram ( 40862 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:07PM (#9078532) Homepage
        For instance, A volcanic erruption can cause so much more so called "greenhouse" gasses to be released into the atmosphere than all the polutants man has expelled since the first machine of industry.

        That is, quite simply, crap. You're wrong and embarassingly so.

        "There is no doubt that volcanic eruptions add CO2 to the atmosphere, but compared to the quantity produced by human activities, their impact is virtually trivial: volcanic eruptions produce about 110 million tons of CO2 each year, whereas human activities contribute almost 10,000 times that quantity." - Scientific American [sciam.com]

        Moderators, please don't mod up silly statements like these where sources aren't cited.

  • Next... a new ice age! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    By the end of the decade, the same satellite will predict a new ice age. These pie-in-the-sky baseless climate trend predictions go in cycles. Global cooling was all the rage in the 1970s, and it is due to come "in vogue" again.

  • Not news (Score:1, Interesting)

    by hopemafia ( 155867 )
    By this point everybody (except some stubborn idiots) admits that the earth is getting warmer. The real question is: Why?

    I'm fairly sick of new studies coming out every couple weeks proving once and for all that the earth is getting warmer. Maybe some more of those research dollars should be devoted to understanding why the warming is occuring and developing ways to cope with a warmer earth, rather than redundantly measuring the temperature via every possible method and then shouting: "GLOBAL WARMING!!!!

  • Contrails? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BigZaphod ( 12942 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @02:02PM (#9075569) Homepage
    Perhaps the biggest source of the problem is contrails [wired.com]. The study they did in the near airplane-less skies after 9/11 seems to indicate that they have quite a massive impact on weather patterns.
    • I don't believe that article said anything about contrails causing warming.

      The contrail effect is likely to be greatest over the US anyway as you are all so busy flying around (and emitting voluminous quantities of greenhouse gases in the process, I might add). I don't think it's as pronounced in the rest of the world - certainly not in the Southern Hemisphere.
  • Rush said that global warming was a communist plot of the liberal hegemony, backed by anti-NRA and pro-ACLU supporters, in an attempt to get a feminist abortion doctor elected to the presidency thereby preventing the birth of the Anti-christ, thwarting Jimmy Swaggart's and Jerry Falwell's predictions of the second coming of Christ and the fall of Israel.

    I think he's exagerrating.

    • Making it more Rush-like (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Limbaugh's not a "Christian Conservative", so replace the parts about the Anti-christ, Falwell and the 2nd Coming with some rant about Hillary and Terry McAuliffe.
  • an article about this every week? As another poster pointed out, most people realize there is a change going on. So is this really newsworthy?
  • Gee, England had a wine industry for thousands of years. It's been too cold for wine grapes for several centuries, maybe things are returning to normal.

    It seems the earth continues to change temperatures well within its historical range.

    Anyone who wants me to punish people for doing far less "harm" than a single volcanic eruption, just demonstrate that this change in temperature is anything other than natural. Go ahead, I dare you.

    Until you can, keep your ego-stroking self-centered "if it's not exactly l

    • The English Wine Industry being non-existent? Hmmm... that's news to these folks [english-wine.com] then.

      Certainly I got a nice little crop of grapes off the vine growing up my wall last year, but then it was the fifth warmest year [met-office.gov.uk] in the Central England Temperature series.

      Regards Luke

  • 1) We are STILL exiting an ice age. Of course things are going to get warmer.
    2) #1 aside, the average surface temperature of earth over a year and over the entire earth is not static. See, we are not in a perfect circle of an orbit. As the planets tug at us, we vary our position from the sun year to year. Charting this for the last nexeral million years and looking at the trend for the past few thousand, we see that we are in the middle of a period of being pulled to the sun.
    3) It is mearly impossible to un
    • Well I ease your mind somewhat on item 1. Seem the hole in the ozone layer has been there a long time, and it's size varies over time. growing for a while then shrinking for a while.
      This is just another datum that got turned into 'sky is falling' mantra for a few years untill scientific analysis showed it to be perfectly normal.

      Mycroft
  • ...is just keep chaning how you measure until you get the results you want.

  • i knew that... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by compro01 ( 777531 )
    everyone know that global warming is going on. the only question being aruged over is "are we to blame?" and i say no.

    this is almost exactly like what happened to the climate 1000 years back. it got warm enough that Greenland was usable for farming. that just seems like to much similarity to be a coinsiance.

    but still, what is causing it??

  • Not so fast... (Score:2, Informative)

    by The Quiet Man ( 158538 )
    Read Roy Spencer's article [techcentralstation.com] about how and why Qiang and his team short-circuited the peer-review process to publish their results. From the article:

    "This kind of mistake would not get published with adequate peer review of manuscripts submitted for publication. But in recent years, a curious thing has happened. The popular science magazines, Science and Nature, have seemingly stopped sending John Christy and me papers whose conclusions differ from our satellite data analysis. This is in spite of the fac

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