I believe there is no so called "consensus" on Climate Change. The debate will continue for years to come, on Climate Change. What I question is the amount of warming is effected by humans, and the amount of warming effected by natural factors (the Sun, oceans being the biggest factors). In my opinion, there is no question that humans do have an effect on climate, but the question is if this effect is minuscule, or substantial. My opinion has changed from months ago, when I believed with no question that Climate Change was 100% natural, and the idea of AGW was a hoax. We do not have enough data to support either opinion, and jump the gun. Tree ring data is just unreliable, to put that out there.
When it comes to burning fossil fuels, I do believe we should cut down, but stopping all burning of fossil fuels would be a bad idea. Many people would lose their job in this case, causing the already bad unemployment rate to rise even more. Some happen to forget that CO2 is needed for life. Then again, too much CO2 wouldn't be the greatest idea. Just a bit more CO2 and plant-life will thrive. Crop season will last longer. Cold weather is worse than warm weather, if you think about it. Harsh cold could mean limited food, from crops. People's bills would be even higher, because of the use of heat, more often.
I don't agree with extremists on either sides. Extremist activists bring up the idea of the Arctic being the only habitable place, in the future. They also show cities underwater, and call our current weather "dirty weather". Extremist skeptics go ahead and say we are heading into an Ice Age, relatively soon. Some get to the point to say that Earth's temperature will drop several degrees, over the next couple of decades. That's obviously over-hyped. Cooling still is not out of the question, with the current -PDO, and lessening Sun activity. Even the +AMO, which is to blame for some of the Arctic melting, is going negative, in 10 or so years. Anyways, I do expect a bit of cooling over the next few decades, but nothing too big.
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
OPINION: Climate Change is Natural
Many believe Climate Change is man-made. I laugh to myself to believe people think CO2 (a trace gas) would have such a large effect on the climate. If you look at the facts, CO2 makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere. Humans contribute a very tiny 3%-5% of that.
Al Gore's chart showed CO2 increasing, and then temperatures increasing, and vice versa. Is this true? No. It's actually the opposite way around. CO2 lagged behind temperatures, in other words data actually showed temperatures warm first, and then CO2 increases in the atmosphere. The hotter the temperature, the less CO2 in the air. The colder the temperature, the less CO2 in the atmosphere.
Next, we go to the hockey graph by Mr. Mann. Tree rings showed that temperatures didn't start warming till the past 100 or so years. This shouldn't be trusted. The Climategate e-mails showed that some scientists could be trying to manipulate data. It doesn't stop there. One guy said he would be willing beat the crap out of a skeptic, if he saw him again. Someone else had a strategy that could keep skeptics from publishing data on newspapers.
Anyways, 2 sets of tree ring data showed no significant warming. One showed no warming trend at all (just some ups and downs throughout time, in a straight line) while the other showed 2000 years of cooling, with the Medieval Warm-Period being warmer that today.
The past 15 years, temperatures have not warmed at all, while CO2 continues to rise. While there is no connection between CO2 and temperatures, ocean and Sun cycles are almost an exact match. As you would expect, when the Sun is more active, you have warmer than normal temperatures, and vise versa. Ocean cycles are a bit more complex. There is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). There are cold phases and warm phases. The AMO is in a warm phase, or warm waters along the East Coast. The PDO is in a cold phase, or cold waters along the West Coast. The warm AMO is the cause of the melting in the Arctic. Data shows as the AMO flipped to the warm phase, the Arctic started a melting trend. This should flip in 5-10 years. When this flip occurs, expect the Arctic to start gaining ice again. The cold PDO also has a big effect on weather. Alaska just had record snowfall this winter. There is still snow on the mountains, which should have melted by now. The Barrow Sea had record ice, earlier this year. The combination of a warm AMO and a cold PDO also means drought is a lot more common in the U.S. This is also why we see more wildfires, like the one earlier this year in Colorado. Anyways, the current drought is not even close to droughts in the 1930's, the 'Dust Bowl'. The warm AMO is good in one way, for snow and cold lovers. Greenland blocking is more likely, which means cold air pretty much locks in place, in the East.
Heat waves are also not even close to the 1930's. The heat wave index shows that U.S. heat waves back then blow away today's heat waves. After a slight increase in the heat wave index in the late 90's, there has been no increase.
What should we expect in the future? We have already seen a couple years of cooling, after the PDO flipped to its cold phase. Expect a continued trend of cooling, until 2030 or so. Little Sun activity/ ocean cycles hint on this. I'm not saying the Earth will become a ice ball or something, but we are likely to have a mini ice age that will last a few decades. Talking ice ball, some people believed in "Global Cooling" in the 1970's. This was another time when the PDO was in its cold phase. the TIME Magazine was warning of the "coming ice age" and even the New York Times was saying it was evident that the planet was cooling. It's funny how these same people are hyping up "Climate Change" now.
Al Gore's chart showed CO2 increasing, and then temperatures increasing, and vice versa. Is this true? No. It's actually the opposite way around. CO2 lagged behind temperatures, in other words data actually showed temperatures warm first, and then CO2 increases in the atmosphere. The hotter the temperature, the less CO2 in the air. The colder the temperature, the less CO2 in the atmosphere.
Next, we go to the hockey graph by Mr. Mann. Tree rings showed that temperatures didn't start warming till the past 100 or so years. This shouldn't be trusted. The Climategate e-mails showed that some scientists could be trying to manipulate data. It doesn't stop there. One guy said he would be willing beat the crap out of a skeptic, if he saw him again. Someone else had a strategy that could keep skeptics from publishing data on newspapers.
Anyways, 2 sets of tree ring data showed no significant warming. One showed no warming trend at all (just some ups and downs throughout time, in a straight line) while the other showed 2000 years of cooling, with the Medieval Warm-Period being warmer that today.
The past 15 years, temperatures have not warmed at all, while CO2 continues to rise. While there is no connection between CO2 and temperatures, ocean and Sun cycles are almost an exact match. As you would expect, when the Sun is more active, you have warmer than normal temperatures, and vise versa. Ocean cycles are a bit more complex. There is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). There are cold phases and warm phases. The AMO is in a warm phase, or warm waters along the East Coast. The PDO is in a cold phase, or cold waters along the West Coast. The warm AMO is the cause of the melting in the Arctic. Data shows as the AMO flipped to the warm phase, the Arctic started a melting trend. This should flip in 5-10 years. When this flip occurs, expect the Arctic to start gaining ice again. The cold PDO also has a big effect on weather. Alaska just had record snowfall this winter. There is still snow on the mountains, which should have melted by now. The Barrow Sea had record ice, earlier this year. The combination of a warm AMO and a cold PDO also means drought is a lot more common in the U.S. This is also why we see more wildfires, like the one earlier this year in Colorado. Anyways, the current drought is not even close to droughts in the 1930's, the 'Dust Bowl'. The warm AMO is good in one way, for snow and cold lovers. Greenland blocking is more likely, which means cold air pretty much locks in place, in the East.
Heat waves are also not even close to the 1930's. The heat wave index shows that U.S. heat waves back then blow away today's heat waves. After a slight increase in the heat wave index in the late 90's, there has been no increase.
What should we expect in the future? We have already seen a couple years of cooling, after the PDO flipped to its cold phase. Expect a continued trend of cooling, until 2030 or so. Little Sun activity/ ocean cycles hint on this. I'm not saying the Earth will become a ice ball or something, but we are likely to have a mini ice age that will last a few decades. Talking ice ball, some people believed in "Global Cooling" in the 1970's. This was another time when the PDO was in its cold phase. the TIME Magazine was warning of the "coming ice age" and even the New York Times was saying it was evident that the planet was cooling. It's funny how these same people are hyping up "Climate Change" now.
Data
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