Global warming over? Global cooling now?

[rage2]

I haven't kept up with the latest global warming news, because honestly, it's impossible to argue with billions of sheep . But an interesting article I read at lunch today mentioned the founder of the weather channel wanting to sue Al Gore for global warming/carbon credits because global warming is a hoax, and that we're forced to pay all these carbon taxes, which makes it fraud.

So I dug a little deeper, and found some info about global temperatures in the last 2 years that really haven't made much mainstream media... probably because it'll make them all look stupid.

Apparently, 2006 global average temperatures was lower than the last 5 years:

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/12/20...r-in-last.html

OK, so maybe it was an anomaly, and nobody picked it up. But then we look at 2007 now that it's over, and it turns out that it was the coldest year this century (ok so it's been 7 years haha):

http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/01/20...oldest-in.html

The above article is pretty funny, lists out the mainstream media (umm, pretty much all of 'em) predicting 2007 to be the warmest year on record in Jan '07.

Here's a graph of temperatures in the last 20 years, broken down by month:


» Click image for larger version

Image is from this article, which has a lot of interesting tidbits.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases.

Something I've always said... solar activity's role in climate change.

BTW - 2007 was a brutally cold year... tons of deaths relating to cold weather. China pretty much was completely frozen. We've got record amounts of sea ice, below average # of hurricanes and typhoons... and oh ya... we got snow in Baghdad too .

DISCUSS!

[blueripper6]

I hate when there is like 3 nice weeks in winter, and people say OMFGGZZZ GLOBALZ WARMNIG!!11.. Wrong.. this is calgary. Global warming may exist.. but its probably just a facist scare tactic(like so many others) Keep the people afraid, easier to control. Thanks.. But 1 more thing
What happened to rage1?

[Redlyne_mr2]

global warming or no global warming Im still environmentally conscious, the brown cloud over the city isnt getting smaller.

[rage2]

Controlling pollution is one thing... Kyoto, carbon credits, and other forms of taking our money because of this pending global warming catastrophe could potentially be fraud.

rage1 never existed. Search and see where the name came from.

[01RedDX]

.

[kertejud2]

*Puts fingers in ears*

LALALALALALA!!! I'm not listening!



But on a serious note, I've always been skeptical of the global warming debate, my beef has always been on the effect of pollution and resource waste having negative effects on us as a species and planet, but since that is somewhat unrelated, I'll put my thoughts in another thread (should it come up).


Anyways, I don't really like the graph because it only goes back 20 years and its pretty good at hiding the average temperature change trends. But its such an imprecise science, its tough to make accurate conclusions one way or another (which is why we have the bitchfests).

The sun is of course accepted as the only force powerful enough to have large effects on the Earth's climate and the debate has always come as "we're making it worse" rather than being the cause, but its always been a pretty open issue. This is why there isn't a 'Theory of Global Warming Due to Human Intervention'


I'll be very interested in this as the research in it progresses.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by 01RedDX
One isolated year of cooler avg temperatures a hardly a trend. Besides, an area of sea ice the size of Great Britain disappeared last year.

But at the same time other Antarctic ice is growing. The problem is of course using one isolated year as a trend, and a 20 year window to try and represent it better. El Nina has been breaking through and if its getting more intense, along with El Nino, then one can easily interpret that as definite signs of climate change.

THe main problem in the global warming debate is of course 'its cold where I am therefore global warming doesn't exist. And somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe many parts of Australia are experiencing their warmest summer ever (or in a very long time).

[adam c]

correct me if im wrong, but i remember summers and winters being warmer when i was younger compared to now...

i remember a lot less snow back then compared to now and temps in the summer would always be higher 20's-30's...

i can only remember a couple days last year where we broke the 30C barrier

[rage2]

Originally posted by adam c
correct me if im wrong, but i remember summers and winters being warmer when i was younger compared to now...

i remember a lot less snow back then compared to now and temps in the summer would always be higher 20's-30's...

i can only remember a couple days last year where we broke the 30C barrier

We're talking about global warming, not Calgary warming .

Originally posted by kertejud2
THe main problem in the global warming debate is of course 'its cold where I am therefore global warming doesn't exist.

Ya, that's why I've posted average temperatures from sensors around the world.

[Kloubek]

I'd like to see if we'd still be having this conversation in 10 years. One, two, maybe even three years of cooler weather is just a coincidence, I'm pretty sure. If you look at before and after pictures of glaciers, it's pretty obvious they are disappearing.

[01RedDX]

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[adam c]

Originally posted by rage2

We're talking about global warming, not Calgary warming .

i live in calgary not the world

[Antonito]

Originally posted by blueripper6
I hate when there is like 3 nice weeks in winter, and people say OMFGGZZZ GLOBALZ WARMNIG!!11.. Wrong.. this is calgary. Global warming may exist.. but its probably just a facist scare tactic(like so many others) Keep the people afraid, easier to control. Thanks.. But 1 more thing
What happened to rage1?

ok as someone who is new to Calgary, this is something I'd like clarification. Some people swear it's the same as always, but a lot of people swear that this is way better. Obviously it gets bloody cold here sometimes, but this year and last year (the 2 I've been here) I was relieved to see that we never got 3 feet of snow, which is something that used to be a common thing. That and the Chinooks that last for a week at a time, which apparently only used to last for a day.

Yay or nay?

[01RedDX]

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[blownz]

My father-in-law has been working in Iran and Turkmanistan (sp?) this past year and they had snow on one of the sites he was at in January and that was pure desert. Granted they also had 9 days straight with temps over 50 degrees in February.

On the polution side, he says these countries don't give a rats ass about it. The new gas plants he is consulting on are very inefficient but they don't care because they only focus on low cost. Cheap parts and cheap 'slave' labour. He said they have break downs causing major injuries including death and they don't care because the governments think their people are expendable.

None of this really make a difference to anyone here, but I think it is interesting nonetheless.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Kloubek
I'd like to see if we'd still be having this conversation in 10 years. One, two, maybe even three years of cooler weather is just a coincidence, I'm pretty sure. If you look at before and after pictures of glaciers, it's pretty obvious they are disappearing.

So when do you determine it's a coincidence and not a trend? If you wanna put that way, we can say the last 100 years of warming was a coincidence too. Don't forget that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. 100 years isn't even a blip, it's more insignificant than a rounding error.

If you look at earth's history of warming and cooling, these periods span millions of years, the worst ice age spanning a billion years.

[treg50]

Toronto's 36 cms of snow away from breaking it's snowfall record. 6 weeks to go PLUS a decent snowstorm this weekend.

However, the previous 4 or 5 winters have been pretty green and mild and not white and cold. We get one colder than average winter, people think global warming is not real? 1 out of 5 is not good.

If anything it's good to nip global warming in the bud... then again it's already past the bud. It's already bad, they say it'll take 20 years at least with major pollution reduction to get the ozone and air quality back to safe levels. That means we have to make drastic change. Not gradual or procrastinating change. Why wait until the world is 95% critical?

LOL, I can't believe ppl want to argue against cutting back on pollution and cleaning up the air.

[rage2]

Originally posted by treg50
Toronto's 36 cms of snow away from breaking it's snowfall record. 6 weeks to go PLUS a decent snowstorm this weekend.

However, the previous 4 or 5 winters have been pretty green and mild and not white and cold. We get one colder than average winter, people think global warming is not real? 1 out of 5 is not good.

If anything it's good to nip global warming in the bud... then again it's already past the bud. It's already bad, they say it'll take 20 years at least with major pollution reduction to get the ozone and air quality back to safe levels. That means we have to make drastic change. Not gradual or procrastinating change. Why wait until the world is 95% critical?

LOL, I can't believe ppl want to argue against cutting back on pollution and cleaning up the air.

Again, GLOBAL WARMING, not TORONTO WARMING . And it's been the last 2 years that there is a cooling trend.

Nobody's arguing against cutting back pollution. Talking about carbon tax, kyoto, shit that costs stupid amounts of money (and in kyoto's case, purely wealth redistribution with no regards to environment).

[Toms-SC]

Paging Toma

[bspot]

Originally posted by rage2
global temperatures in the last 2 years

Originally posted by blueripper6
I hate when there is like 3 nice weeks in winter, and people say OMFGGZZZ GLOBALZ WARMNIG!!11.. Wrong.. this is calgary. Global warming may exist.. but its probably just a facist scare tactic

Wow. The guy agrees with the person using 2 years as their reference, but hates the people that use 3 weeks.

Both are the same degree of lame. 2 years means nothing in this debate.