Record Cold, US and Europe: Global Warming?

[Leonhard]

How is it "special pleading" to ask their criteria for declaring that such a narrow range of data to be "average" for the Earth's climate as a whole?

Its special pleading because what the temperature average was between 1979 and 2000 has nothing to do with whether it was relatively cold in the US, but warm in Russia. As said, it being cold in the US is not in contradiction of the fact that global average temperature has been rising. Therefore what you said amounted to special pleading.

Tell me, what is the "correct" temperature of the Earth, and what are the "correct" number of extreme weather events per year?

I'm not sure why this is relevant. The "correct" number of extreme weather events? I'm really not sure what you're asking for. You're the one arguing that the US having a cold winter is problematic. Which, again, I don't see why you claim. The US is only a small percentage of the world's surface.

Is that actual data or "adjusted" data which is only ever adjusted in favor of warming?

Why should the adjustments be random?

Makes you wonder what man was doing in 1100 BC to cause global warming! Maybe too many campfires and cow farts.

There are no axis on that graph, and it doesn't appear to have been drawn from actual data, but appears to have been hand drawn by these guys. If you can find the datasets they used that would be nice.

[shunyadragon]

Well it seems that no weather conditions can falsify the global warming meme...

Correct, no specific weather conditions of a short period of time can falsify global warming. Global Warming is not based on the weather, because it is based global change in climate over a longer period of time.

[JimL]

See Leonard many of us remember the scientific consensus around acid rain, that it was a planetary crisis leading to an uninhabitable earth. Never mind the fact that no one has demonstrated that over all a warmer planet would be worse or less beneficial than a cooler planet.

Seer, are you an acid rain denier as well as a climate change denier? Btw, the clean air act was signed into law in 1990 and has reduced the emissions of sulfuric acids and the resulting environmental damage in N America. But it isn't over, the problem hasn't faded away, it hasn't been completely solved, here in N. America or anywhere else. China is said to be experiencing the same environmental damage today due to acid rain that the U.S. was experiencing in the 1980's.

[Leonhard]

See Leonard many of us remember the scientific consensus around acid rain, that it was a planetary crisis leading to an uninhabitable earth. Never mind the fact that no one has demonstrated that over all a warmer planet would be worse or less beneficial than a cooler planet.

I'm trying to find that 1987 report he's citing, as he's quoting another guy Darwall who he says is "paraphrasing" it. Which makes me suspicious. At any rate I know little about acid rain stuff, except that its been a problem here in Scandinavia, though less so in my own country. We have a very chalk filled soil which can neutralize the pH value. In Norway and Sweden it was worse. Thankfully 95% of the sulphur can be removed by stripping it out of the oil and in the smoke stacks of coal power plants.

As for size of consensus. I can't make any arguments there Seer, its not something I know enough about. Unless of course you're making the argument that Science is bunk, though I think that'd be overkill.

I'm all for the consensus to be proven wrong. That does happen in science. All scientific knowledge is provisional. However it does represent our current best understanding of it. And not to act on our best understanding is imprudent.

[seer]

Seer, are you an acid rain denier as well as a climate change denier? Btw, the clean air act was signed into law in 1990 and has reduced the emissions of sulfuric acids and the resulting environmental damage in N America. But it isn't over, the problem hasn't faded away, it hasn't been completely solved, here in N. America or anywhere else. China is said to be experiencing the same environmental damage today due to acid rain that the U.S. was experiencing in the 1980's.

Nonsense Jim, ph levels have still been rising since the clean air act:

pH.jpg


The fact is Jim, there is no planetary crisis and it will not create an uninhabitable earth.

[Leonhard]

Hey seer could you link to the source you got that screenshot from. Its really tiny and almost unreadable.

At any rate if the pH value has been going up since the eighties, that would appear to mean that guidelines put in place, such as removing sulphur from oil and coal smoke has worked. A low pH means something is acidic. The lower it is, the more acidic it is. 7 is close to neutral.

[Leonhard]

Nevermind found it. I'll just post it before discussing it. In general seer, you can just right click an image and press "copy image location" and paste that between two image tags here on tweb. That's how I do it. :)

[Leonhard]

So we're done with the global warming discussion now seer? You're rather talk about acid rain instead?

[One Bad Pig]

Right now, the jet stream is crashing south in the eastern half of the continent while surging northward in the west half. That phenomenon, called the North American Winter Dipole, is strangely enough simultaneously responsible for freezing temperatures in the East and the roasting temperatures in the West, which are fueling recent forest fires in California.

Because even a thread trolling science should expect some science to show up.

Even where it is colder than usual, it's not record-breaking cold. I wish both sides would quit arguing from out-of-norm local temperatures.

[JimL]

Even where it is colder than usual, it's not record-breaking cold. I wish both sides would quit arguing from out-of-norm local temperatures.

I think the point is that the earth is experiencing record breaking temperature rise globally.

[seer]

So we're done with the global warming discussion now seer? You're rather talk about acid rain instead?

The point is Leonhard that "science" is not beyond creating alarmist predictions. That is why I asked, where is the evidence that a generally warmer earth will be worse, over all, than a cooler earth.

[Leonhard]

The point is Leonhard that "science" is not beyond creating alarmist predictions. That is why I asked, where is the evidence that a generally warmer earth will be worse, over all, than a cooler earth.

The contention in the OP was about whether cold weather squared well with Global Warming. When it was pointed out that one weather observation locally in one country could never be problematic to that theory, you seemed to imply that nothing could falsify the "the global warming meme", both were answered. Global Warming can be falsified, just not with a lone weather observation.

Then you moved to talking about alarmism such as acid rain, with the apparent presumption that there wasn't a problem to deal with. Which I'm not sure I accept. It seems to me that there was a problem with sulphur dioxide releases, and a combination of industry and government regulation took care of it. I don't know enough about the science of acid rain mitigation though.

One of the things I've learned, is that there's a difference between that scientists are talking about, and their concerns, and how the media portrays the situation. Take for instance the "Ice Age" thing. That was hardly discussed by scientists, a few dozen articles advanced it as a possibility, but there was no consensus. However those few preliminary reports turned up a storm in the media, which led to a public perception that scientists were warning of a coming Ice Age.

This can't be compared to current state of climate research when it comes to Global Warming. They're not the same thing.

Neither Al Gore, nor Times, represents what the scientists are saying. I might agree with Cow Poke that they've quite a lot of harm in how they've reported the situation. Global Warming is bad, its consequences could be quite severe (just read about it in the IPCC for a nuanced perspective), there's reason enough to start to make it economically favorable to transition to other energy forms, whether nuclear or solar/wind. And the industry is already doing that, at an accelerating pace.

However as the situation has been hyped up by the media who pick only the craziest proposals, and not the conservative estimates, people look at the Himmalayas and notice they're not ice free and go "Well they don't seem to know what they're talking about".

And while I understand that, and I think part of the blame rests on the media for preferring clickbait headlines, there's also a growing disdain and outright rejection of expert opinion on the rise in general. We've seen this with the anti-vaxxer movement, where people refuse to vaccinate their children, leading to a measles outbreak in Disney World of all things. Measles outbreak. In the 21st Century. All because they believe they know more than the medical community does.

One point on the acid rain thing seer. There was a problem. Its hard to argue that there wasn't when the rain fall pH level was all the way down to 2.75. The improvements you saw was from the industry making adaptions. And while there's room for a discussion about the extent of improvements the Clean Air Act is responsible for, the industries, both in the US and Europe have done a lot to change what they did. I know they did so in Scandinavia at least.

The ph level didn't go from 2.75 to 5 on its own.

Its a bit weird to see you say "Where was the catastrophe?" when in fact we did things to avoid it becoming one. However, as for how bad it was back then, or would have been, what estimates the scientists had contra what the media was hyping, is beyond me. For the US all I know is that Reagan commissioned a study on it and Bush Senior enacted the Clean Air Act, and currently the EPA has a report of the effects it had which was published in 2011. I haven't read it though.

[Thoughtful Monk]

It is freaking cold, I can't remember it being this cold in December for this long since the sixties, with no end in sight. Europe is experiencing the same. How does this square with Global warming...

Whoever allowed global warming to be the initial label to what is happening, created a lot of unnecessary discussion when colder temperatures hit. I'm in the midst of 2 to 3 weeks of colder than normal with no end in sight. I think that's why they now call it climate change.

[Cow Poke]

Whoever allowed global warming to be the initial label to what is happening, created a lot of unnecessary discussion when colder temperatures hit. I'm in the midst of 2 to 3 weeks of colder than normal with no end in sight. I think that's why they now call it climate change.

And, as I've frequently pointed out, whoever allowed Al Gore to be the unofficial official spokesperson should be locked in the cooler. All that drama queen chicken little stuff didn't help.

[JimL]

The point is Leonhard that "science" is not beyond creating alarmist predictions. That is why I asked, where is the evidence that a generally warmer earth will be worse, over all, than a cooler earth.

The proof is in the pudding as they say. Where have you been. Have you not noticed the increase and severity of severe weather conditions, hurricanes, forests fires etc. Puerto Rico was basically destroyed. But here, I'll just leave this for you to peruse, and then deny.

http://www.nrdc.org/stories/are-effe...ing-really-bad