The Congress is trying to pass the abominable "Cap & Trade" Tax which will greatly increase the energy tax for ALL US citizens (and illegal immigrants too) if passed. call the critters now! If you like $5 a gallon gasoline you'll love this bill! If you have slept through the "debate" about global whining (er, warming), then you'll be surprised to find Congress wants to stop it based on very faulty science. Despite the horrendous burden of this new energy tax, the end result will NOT result in any prevention of global warming. It just gives the elected elite more power over the little people. (BTW the earth has been cooling over the last 10 years) For more info on the grossly underestimated government impact assessment to your energy bill see CBO Grossly Underestimates Costs of Cap and Trade » The Foundry Here's the bottom line: "Whatever the costs, we will get almost nothing in exchange. According to climatologist Chip Knappenberger, Waxman-Markey would moderate temperatures by only hundredths of a degree in 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree at the end of the century. This doesn’t sound like a great deal for the next generation—millions of lost jobs, trillions of lost income, 50-90 percent higher energy prices, stunning increases in the national debt, and all for undetectable changes in world temperature."
While my opinion on the "Cap and trade" bill sort of mirrors your own, I would like to see the documentation on the globe "coolling" for the past ten years. Areas of the globe have cooled, but the ocean and the bulk of the globe have warmed up. At least that is the data I've read, and seen in the shrinking of out "Gem of the Rockies", Glacier National Park.
There is absolutely no consensus among reputable scientist about the oceans warming significantly, despite what the UN and US government are claiming. Nor is there any undisputed proof that the earth is undergoing a consistent warming trend. While glaciers in Glacier National park may be shrinking, scientists report that glaciers in California's Sierra Madre mountains are actually GROWING. Irt is entirely too early to resort to panic solutions based on "scare science".
Here you go.... Breaking News: Global Warming Now Includes a Natural Cooling Trend of Ten Years. And the Ten Years Before That, Too. : The Sundries Shack
Those appear to be predictions, not past data. I like these peer-reviewed stats better for some reason. And while I don't think human contribution of greenhouse gases it "THE" reason, even a bird (with brains the size of thimbles and smaller) turns their butts out and take a crap outside their nests. "Ten years ago, we could not simply eliminate all the tree-ring data from our network because we did not have enough other proxy climate records to piece together a reliable global record," said Michael Mann, associate professor of meteorology and geosciences and director of Penn State's Earth System Science Center. "With the considerably expanded networks of data now available, we can indeed obtain a reliable long-term record without using tree rings." The results confirm that temperatures today in the Northern Hemisphere are higher than those of the Medieval warm period, a time when the Vikings colonized Greenland are are believed to have become the first Europeans to visit North America. From: Past decade is warmest in at least 1,300 years (and) "There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," said the National Research Council. "Less confidence can be placed in proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperatures for A.D. 900 to 1600... although the available proxy evidence does indicate that many locations were warmer during the past 25 years than during any other 25-year period since 900. Very little confidence can be placed in statements about average global surface temperatures prior to A.D. 900 because the proxy data for that time frame are sparse," continued the Council." In a sublink from: War of words over new climate change report, 'hockey stick' model EDITOR'S SUMMARY: A new study by NASA indicates that 2005 was the warmest year in at least a century, surpassing 1998. According to their data, the five warmest years over the last century have occurred since 1997: 2005, then 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004. NASA also announced that over the past 30 years, the Earth has warmed by 0.6 degrees C or 1.08 degrees F, and 0.8 degrees C or 1.44 degrees F over the past 100 years. Climatologists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City noted that the highest global annual average surface temperature in more than a century was recorded in their analysis for the 2005 calendar year. (Don’t you work for Goddard at a different locale "texson66"?) From another related sublink: 2005 was the warmest year on record (Also) In 2007, a moderately strong La Niña event put a chill on the eastern Pacific Ocean, and the Sun was near the low spot in its 11-year cycle of variability. Nevertheless, global average surface temperature in 2007 was still tied for the second warmest year in the instrumental record compiled by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which goes back to 1880. The record warmest year was 2005, with 1998—now tied with 2007—in second place. The global average temperature anomaly for 2007 was 0.57 degrees Celsius (about 1 degree Fahrenheit) above the 1950-1980 baseline. A single year of data on its own can’t be used to either prove or disprove a trend like global warming. However, as the NASA GISS scientists point out in their summary for 2007, the temperature anomaly of 2007 "continues the strong warming trend of the past thirty years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases. The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990." (maybe you work here instead?) From: Global Temperature Anomalies: 2007 : Image of the Day
I don't intent on panicing, or grasping at illogical solutions, nor do I intend to ignore data which contradicts my own opinion. It would appear that those on Mt. Shasta seem to be the only ones worldwide which are actually doing so. MOUNT SHASTA, Calif. — Reaching more than 14,000 feet above sea level, Mt. Shasta dominates the landscape of high plains and conifer forests in far Northern California. While it's not California's tallest mountain, the tongues of ice creeping down Shasta's volcanic flanks give the solitary mountain another distinction. Its seven glaciers, referred to by American Indians as the footsteps made by the creator when he descended to Earth, are the only historical glaciers in the continental U.S. known to be growing. With global warming causing the retreat of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, Mt. Shasta is actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean. "When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean." …"Scientists say a warming Pacific Ocean means more moist air sweeping over far Northern California. Because of Shasta's location and 14,162-foot elevation, the precipitation is falling as snow, adding to the mass of the mountain's glaciers. "It's a bit of an anomaly that they are growing, but it's not to be unexpected," said Ed Josberger, a glaciologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Tacoma, Wash., who is currently studying retreating glaciers in Alaska and the northern Cascades of Washington. Historical weather records show Mt. Shasta has received 17% more precipitation in the last 110 years. The glaciers have soaked up the snowfall and have been adding more snow than is lost through summer melting. See: Glaciers on California's Mt. Shasta keep growing - USATODAY.com The shrinking glaciers in the Alps are causing the redrawing of the borders between nations. May 8, 2009 -- Global warming is shrinking Europe's alpine glaciers with such dramatic acceleration that Italy and Switzerland must now redraw their mountain borders, says a proposed law approved by the lower house of the Italian parliament at the end of April. See: Shrinking Glaciers Redraw Europe's Borders: Discovery News
It "appears" that the glaciers are the only ones growing? No, it's just they are the only ones reported so far. If you want to present that as a fact, you damn well better do a survey of ALL glaciers world-wide, otherwise it's just conjecture. The point is the data's not consistent, but the Government and the scientist that want immediate action seem to ignore the data that is contrary to their conclusions. "The majority of glaciers world-wide re shrinking"? What the hell does that mean? Absolutely nothing, and they don't even know for sertain that it's factual. I guess what bothers me is that the "scientists" that want to push all the panic solutions resort to "scare science" that won't pass muster when analyzed critically; why is that? If they can't, or won't, make their case using scientifically sound methodology, what is it they are trying to hide? I get the feeling that the public is being pushed into approving decisions that are absolutely premature or that may prove to be completely incorrect.
They are shrinking, as measured with scientific instuments in the Andes, the Alps, the Himalayas, and on the African ranges including Mt. Kilimangaro (SP?) most drastically. They aren't "pushing a panic button", they are reporting data and offering explainations for the events which are occurring what we do with the data is up to us, and whether or not politicans (of either stripe) take advantage of these statistics for their own personal agenda, is only to be expected. That doesn't make the numbers less true. Some of this next is last year's data as I put this together last year, out of my own curiosity since I live in Montana, and was dismayed at the state of the glaciers in the Park when I visited last. Ever since I was a kid in the fifties I have seen a change in the glaciers in our crown jewel; Glacier National Park. It used to be that the Silver Stairs (snowmelt/glacier runoff) were active from late April until early August. Not anymore, they are dry as a popcorn fart by mid-summer. We have lost glaciers which took thousands of years to form in less than a century and a half, there were 150 of them when they were first counted in the 1850s. Now the number is shockingly low. See: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/ And according to the USGS data released in early 2007, the US Geological Survey's Center of Excellence for GIS reported that sea levels are currently rising about 0.04 to 0.08 inches (1 to 2 millimeters) each year. See: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3055/ "ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2008) — A warming global ocean — influencing the winds that shear off the tops of developing storms — could mean fewer Atlantic hurricanes striking the United States according to new findings by NOAA climate scientists. Furthermore, the relative warming role of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans is important for determining Atlantic hurricane activity." See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080124115808.htm The records of numbers of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic (as of Aug. 2007) shows that the number of these are increasing since they have been cataloged starting in 1900. This is included in the text; "Critics of the global warming theory have often held that data showing increased hurricane activity account for better observation rather than changing global weather patterns." "But Holland and Webster refute these assertions, arguing that the distinct transitions in hurricane activity noted by the study occurred around 1930 and 1995, while aerial and satellite observation of hurricanes stated respectively in 1944 and in 1970." "We are of the strong and considered opinion that data errors alone cannot explain the sharp, high-amplitude transitions between the climatic regimes, each with an increase of around 50 percent in cyclone and hurricane numbers, and their close relationship withsea surface temperatures", the authors state. "The 2006 hurricane season, the study notes, was far less active than the two preceding years, in part because of the emergence of an El Nino weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean." (However) "..even a quiet year by today's standards would be considered normal or slightly active compared to an average year in the early part of the 20th century," Holland said. See: http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read.asp?id=105038822007 And while it is true the number of hurricanes which made landfall in the US declined, the number of tropical storms developing annually in the Atlantic Ocean has more than doubled over the past century, with the increase taking place in two jumps, researchers say. And while the Thermohaline Conveyor Belt may NOT be influenced immediately by the injection of fresh water, the fact is that it has been in the past. See: Thermohaline Ocean Circulation I suppose that in the long run we may have to just "wait and see’, and while I enjoy "computer models" as much as anyone, but enjoy comparative empirical data more. Coastal waters from New York to North Carolina have crept up by an average of 2.4 to 4.4 millimeters (0.09 to 0.17 inches) a year, compared with an average global increase of 1.7 millimeters (0.07 inches) a year, the EPA said in a report. As a result, sea levels along the East Coast rose about a foot over the past century, the EPA's report, commissioned by the Climate Change Science Program, said. See: Rising sea levels threaten East Coast | Green Business | Reuters I don't subscribe to "scare science", nor do I subscribe to "agenda driven stories", both tend to be too extreme for my tastes.
Greenland Glaciers Losing Ice Much Faster, Study Says Glaciers melting is a reality. Take the Greenland Glaciers. They are melting at an astounding rate and what people don't seem to be thinking is that if they drop below a certain height, they'll melt all the way. The amount of fresh water released in the Ocean is jaw dropping and other than the fact of the raising sea waters (which would engulf countries like the Netherlands) we'd have to deal with the collapse of our current stream flows. The Golf stream for instance, only works while the water has a certain proportion of salinity. If the concentration of salt drops below a certain level, the stream just stops making the northern hemisphere a frozen wasteland. Some effects of dwindling streams can already be felt for example, Brazil had Hurricanes this year which indicates a southerly migration of these kinds of phenomena (usually Brazil would be sheltered from this kind of storms due to their geographic position). So, global warming or not, they (the glaciers) are fading and action must be taken now (while I don't see how... Stopping millions of cubic meters of water from melting is something that is beyond my grasp I'm afraid...). It's not scare science, these are facts. And the news Clint gave, well I'll hand it over to you he should have said "of all the Glaciers which are known to us, those from Mt. Shasta are the only ones growing.". But since we know most of them (World Glacier Inventory) I say that it won't make a difference in the long run if a couple of hundred or so are growing while the rest is retreating. Oh you may also want to check out NASA's Giovanni site (GIOVANNI — GES DISC: Goddard Earth Sciences, Data & Information Services Center). If you know what you're doing you can collect a lot of precious information from it. Cheers...
Regardless of sea levels rising or falling or glaciers melting or advancing, the fact is the proposed law will NOT affect global temps significantly even in 100 years to rectify the climate change. See summary paragraph above Meanwhile it WILL kill your pocket book with outrageous energy costs as well as loss of thousands of more jobs... (CO2 is an important atmospheric gas...water vapor has more impact in transfer of heat energy. The problem was thought originally that CO2 increases led to higher temperatures. But in reviewing the climatic data it has been demonstrated over the last 800,000 years that there is an 800 year lag of CO2 levels after a previous warming period! This has happened many, many times in th elast 1 million years. This legislation should have never been allowed out of committee!!!!!)
