The Super La Nina and the Coming Winter
A super La Nina is developing.
Historically, these strong La Nina events drop the Earth’s average temperature around one degree Fahrenheit, and the drop comes quickly. As a result, some of the same places that had record heat this summer may suffer through record cold this winter.
La Nina is the lesser-known colder sister of El Nino. La Nina chills the waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean, and in turn cools the entire planet for one to two years or more. This chilling has the potential to bring bone-numbing cold to many parts of the world for this and the following winter. As a result, world energy demand may spike in the next one to two years as much colder weather hits many of the major industrial nations.
This La Nina appears to be special, at least so far. It is well on its way to being the strongest of these events since the super La Nina of 1955-1956. During that powerful La Nina that lasted two years, the global average temperature fell nearly one degree Fahrenheit from 1953 to 1956.
The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) measures the air pressure difference between Darwin, Australia, and Tahiti. The lower the value of the index, the stronger the El Nino typically is. The higher the SOI index, the stronger the La Nina. The September SOI value of +25.0 was the highest of any September going back to 1917, when it was +29.7. During that super La Nina, the global temperature fell 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1915 to 1917. The +25.0 September SOI reading is also the highest for any month dating back to the +31.6 value in November of 1973.
The most recent La Nina developed in the spring of 2007, and persisted until the early summer of 2008. The global average temperature fell one degree Fahrenheit in that period of time, equal to all of the warming of the last 100 years! If the trend of this rapidly developing, potentially super La Nina continues, an equal or larger temperature drop can be anticipated during the next one to two years. This La Nina is coming on very fast and very strong. Already it is colder than the six coldest La Ninas of the last 60 years when they were at a similar stage of development.
What about the recent heat we’ve all heard about?
For the last year, the world has been dealing with the warming effects of a strong El Nino. The El Nino warms the ocean waters of the tropical Pacific Ocean and in turn heats the atmosphere. Western Russia melted under a record heat wave this summer, after freezing from record cold last winter. Many parts of the southern United States had record heat this summer, but also shivered under record cold last winter. The persistence of the jetstream to blow in patterns that changed very little for long periods of time contributed to these extremes of temperature. This locked in jetstream wind pattern enhances temperature anomalies by restricting the exchange of air flow from one place to another. What would be hot becomes very hot, and what would be cold becomes very cold.
Ummm….this article is wrong because all those U.N. politicians and Al Gore and B. Hussein Obama said it’s gonna get hotter…ummmmm….
Turns out they were right.
Even with the super La Nina the global temps from Roy Spencer’s satellite show near record highs for June.
Why is that?
“Interestingly, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 369 parts per million to 387 ppm (parts per million) during this time. This amount is 2 percent above the level of 302 ppm in 1910″
I BELIEVE YOU MEAN “20 PERCENT ABOVE” not “2″,
Thanks, Art. I’ve also been watching and wondering about this La Nina event!
You’re correct. The number should be a 6% increase.
Art
?? 369/302 x 100% = 122%.
The increase is 22%, not 2% or 6%.
Correction to both: The Increase is 22%. 369-302= 67. the increase is 67/302, which is 22%. There has been a 22% increase in CO2.
It will be even worse in the Green Power nations. All those windmills will need to have electric heaters installed to keep them moving but they won’t be able to use solar panels unless they keep their electric truck cherry pickers going to scrap off the panels to produce what little energy they’ll generate in winter with the Earth tilted the wrong way. On, and those tidal things won’t work under the ice. And can’t harvest bio-fuels under all that snow. Expect commercials on EU TV to say “Got Coal?”.
“Got coal”???????? Only when they work out a hookah application.
OMG>> we can only hope!!
The sad thing is you actually think you are funny???Nothing like making fun of people who are trying to lok for solutions!!!
Somebody tell Obama we need more useless windmills and solar panels!
Drill for oil, utilize the natural gas that God gave us in abundance!
“tell” Obama something? Surely you jest. If someone managed, it would be the first time.
So much for global warming hysteria and you have to wonder how restricting drilling for oil, gas and mining coal will help the people of this planet. ??
I am a libberal, and I’m telling you that global warming is coming! Forget this La Nina nonsense, the real problem is flatulent cows and other sins against Gaia.
However, as a libberal, I am also inconsistent and have stocked up 8 tons of dead dinosaurs in the form of CO2-emitting coal, and other forms of evil hydrocarbons. Like Al Gore, I have no intention of freezing in the dark.
Privately, I agree with you that this winter is going to be colder than hell frozen over.
Thanks for this forecast…If it is correct, it will be interesting to see how Britian copes, since their politicians are determined to switch from coal to wind (which refused to blow during last winter’s blizzards) …Also, since the EPA is determined to shut down coal power plants (I believe 100 have been shuttered recently without replacement), this could be a wake-up call for both regimes to consider common-sense energy sources, rather than the green-only agenda…
Will it be enough to finally end the Al Gore hoax? “You can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time, BUT YOU CANNOT FOOL MOTHER NATURE”.
Well the weather mavens are very sophisticated as we all know. I expect a warm winter.
Where is the global warming when you need it? [end sarcasm]
It’s going to get colder? Isn’t this more bad news for “global warming” enthusiasts? Not at all. Recall it’s no longer referred to as “warming”…it’s “climate change” now. Climate change manifests in volatility. So you see, it does not matter if the temperatures rise or fall, either way it proves we need the carbon tax NOW.
A counter argument must now be made that if Global Warming is caused by carbon dioxide and it is no longer it is now Climate Change then no matter what we do about carbon dioxide it makes no difference so then carry on living as you always have!
No, you’re already out of date. It’s now “climate disruption”. The labels keep getting more inclusive, meaningless, and unprovable as one house of cards after another slumps to the ground.
Fear not. Just pull over La Nina at a stop light and ask for its papers.
Bwahaaahaaa! (Except that won’t work in Arizona)
And it’s illegal to ask in California, the Feds say-so.
Those mean old feds. I wish they would stay out of our lives and start getting in other people’s lives.
It seems to me that the bigger successes we have in eliminating aerosol pollutions the bigger the differences we have in diurnal temperature and also seasonal highs and lows. This seems to correlate to the weekend effect and explain the China paradox. It doesn’t have any very expensive scientific and political wealth-distributive policy implications though so I guess it will be ignored.
2009 had the lowest number of sunspots since 1913. That we have been having increasingly colder winters in no coincidence. Galileo invented the modern telescope in 1609 and by 1610 he was counting sunspots. In 1750 the counting was formalized, and the modern numbering system for sunspot cycles began. During the past four hundred years there were two extended periods when the sun exhibited very low sunspot counts. These periods are known as the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) and the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830).The sunspot low points correspond exactly to exceptionally cold weather. New York Harbor, the Dutch canals and the Thames River froze solid. Crop yields were at record lows. Snows fell late in the year and began a few months later. Napoleon marched on Moscow during the Dalton Minimum and suffered the consequences.
Scientists who study solar cycles have more than just four hundred years of written records and anecdotal evidence of the sun’s linkage to climate. Ice cores have been examined that are thousands of feet in length, covering hundreds of thousands of years. In the early 80’s, scientists Willi Dansgaard and Hans Oeschger pioneered a way to sink a hollow drill core similar to ones used in oil exploration, bringing up ice instead of oil. They brought up two Greenland cores almost a mile in length, covering 25 centuries of snowfall. They discovered that oxygen isotopes 18 and 16 show air temperature when the snow fell to earth. Cores have been drilled in numerous places around the world. Carbon-14 and beryllium-10 have been found to vary inversely with the strength of solar activity. These isotopes found in Greenland ice cores show historic lows during the Maunder and Dalton Minimums. Tree rings have been studied, again from multiple sites. The samples showed dramatic changes in climate occurring at the same time regardless of where they were taken. In other words, global climate change long before the Industrial Age.
Money and politics are very much involved in the “science” of global warming. Al Gore himself has pocketed over $100 million dollars from “green investments” and carbon trading schemes. Goldman Sachs is heavily invested in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a greenhouse gas market originally funded in part by the Joyce Foundation – on whose board sat Barack Obama. The carbon trading mechanism was developed by none other than Franklin Raines, who at that time was CEO of Fannie Mae. Universities and individual scientists are awash in grant money – if they produce the kind of results purse string owners
If this cold trend continues, the human race is in deep kimchee. The US is currently burning about 25% of its corn crop for “biofuels.” This is mandated by law, and there is tremendous pressure from Big Agri on our corrupt politicians to increase requirements. We haven’t built a new refinery in the US for about thirty years, and much of our own oil and gas is off limits due to environmental lawsuits and pressure. The massive psuedo-scientific fraud formerly known as “global warming” and “climate change” has recently been rebranded as “climate disruption.” Other than making a huge pile of money for the elites invested in this scheme, it does nothing to “change” the climate. But it surely poses an existential threat to the rest of us. When you go to the polls next week, remember the party that has been pushing Cap and Trade and Climate Change legislation and “Green Jobs” and vote them all out. Hint: There is (D) after their name.
It seems likely that sunspots are ONE of the significant variables in climate. La Nina and El Nino are another; aren’t they really about when cold water or warmer water is at the surface in the Pacific, the ocean “turning over” etc? The earth wobbling on its axis has also been implicated. Given the fact that the last glacier receded more than eighty centuries ago, there are undoubtedly other important variables which we just don’t know.
If things get significantly colder over an extended period, our domestic limits on drilling and refining will be loosened. We are in a period where the judgment has been made to “protect” ourselves from various pollutants, and all those limits are caused/made acceptable by the larger picture of supply and demand.
I am not worried much any more about CO2 emissions, but that does not prove that there is no tipping point out there. Any CO2 tipping point (if it existed) would only work when other cycles were pushing us toward warming as well. What the tipping point might be for the return of the glaciers; who knows?
It’s hard to predict climate, but we can predict that people will be making money from it whether it goes up, down, or sideways.
If by ‘ONE’ you mean ‘solar activity, being the most significant’, then sure. Ok.
What I absolutely love about the entire ‘Climate Change’ discussion is one simple thought experiment: What happens if the sun goes out? Or dials output to 11? What impact does CO2 ppm have on the overall effect?
…
Dwight;
Read some about the “great conveyor current”. That may be a tipping point that we don’t hear much about today.
Carl
Something about the Gulf Stream shutting down, possibly affected by a lot of melting ice in Greenland? I still want to know where the melting in Greenland has gotten to now, compared to its furthest extent in the MWP.
With the horizontal ice retreat, science has discovered lost farms and mines from the nordic people and there exploits from 500 plus years age. This does not fit with there science of climate whatever so keep it quite. P.S. the ice is growing faster vertically than the horizontial melt off.
There is no CO2 tipping point.
All fossil fuel – coal, oil, and gas – used to be plant life. All plant life used to be atmospheric CO2 (or CO2 dissolved in the oceans.) Given that all fossil fuel was in the atmosphere at one time, I don’t think CO2 has a tipping point. The Ordovician Period had 10x our current level of CO2 (and an Ice Age), and the Earth seems to have survived it.
Plants are the unacknowledged variable. Today’s plants are extremely efficient at harvesting our relatively low concentrations of CO2. More CO2 means faster-growing plants – and incidentally more food. So drive that SUV and be smug in the fact that you are helping feed Africa.
Well said: CO2 being called a pollutant by alarmists have perverted words yet again. That’s like calling a lot of food storage pollution. The fact is, CO2 is the stuff of life, without which there can be no caloric harnessing of the sun’s energy. Plants use turn CO2 into stored energy by using the energy of the sun. When they grow, they need to metabolize some of that stored energy and release some CO2 back. The rest of the stored energy is what fuels animals that consume plants. There is no other way to make food, animal, people, plants, bacteria or anything without CO2! So, let’s dig up some of that carbon, use it’s stored energy, and put it back into the atmosphere to feed the world!
There is some correlation of the temperature extremes associated with the decadal Pacific occillation and heat measurements from the sea bed. These heat sources are from the areas between the tectonic plates. CO2 has no impact, nor do suspot activity. Changes in eart axis, may.. The main take away lesson, is that there is a huge amount to learn about the earths heat transfer mechanisms, before we will be able to predict cimate trends that outlast a season.
Fear not. The CCX is moribund. Its highest prices ever per ton offset were around $8. They have now been at $0.05 – $0.10 for about a year. Ain’t nobuddy buyin’ nothin’. (Because nothin’ is all that’s on sale!)
It’s awful when the rubes figger out the scam.
Great post Fairbanks99…
Earth’s temperature is entirely dependent on the Sun and what happens below the Earth’s crust. Our climate changes based on that temperature, not on some imaginary CO2 number caused by cars and cow farts.
It’s also important to look at volcanic eruptions during these minimums: Mt Etna throughout the Maunder Minimum and Tambora in 1815 which occurs in the middle of the Dalton Minimum.
There is also a theory out there that suggests changes in the wavelengths radiated from the sun during Min/Max are different; and that it is the Min wavelengths that warm the Earth’s temperature and changes our ocean warming cycles and climate.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7316/full/nature09426.html
However you look at the data, blaming CO2 and greenhouse gas for global climate change is like saying a machine with trillions of parts and billion redundant backup systems failed because one specific part broke. That theory isn’t even technically sound.
It’s easy to tell the difference between warming caused by increased solar activity and warming caused by increased greenhouse effect. If it’s the sun, then we’re getting more energy, and the whole atmosphere should be warming. If it’s greenhouse, we’re getting the same amount of energy but it’s being distributed differently: more heat is trapped at the surface and less heat escapes to the stratosphere. So if it’s the Sun, the stratosphere should be warming, but if it’s greenhouse, the stratosphere should be cooling. In fact, the stratosphere has been on a long-term cooling trend for the past 50 years (which is as far back as global records go.)
Smoking gun: it’s greenhouse. Which means, it’s us.
Also, if it’s the sun, we’re getting more heat during the day, and daytime temps should be rising fastest. But if it’s greenhouse, we’re losing less heat at night, and nighttime temps should be rising fastest. In fact, nighttime temps have been rising about twice as fast as daytime temps.
Smoking gun, again: it’s greenhouse. Which means, it’s us.
However, I do think your description is enlightening –and I would agree a smoking gun, but we don’t know who’s gun and who pulled the trigger.
Yes – Greenhouse, NOT necessarily CO2, which is the subject here. So is the warmer climate making more water vapor, and is it occurring at night? Do we really know precisely which variables are causing what –or are we just trying to correlate events?
I’m not following your math here. 389 ppm is 2% higher than 302 ppm?
How is that calculated?
The number should be a 6 percent increase.
Art
?????????
Art, yore ‘rithmatic BDG. (Which is a very rude acronym. Don’t look it up!)
The closest anything you gave comes to 6% is 387/369 x 100% = 104.8%, or about a 5% increase.
You must be one of these young fellers who took New Math in grade school.
Balderdash.
St. Al Gore has spoken, and mankind must be restrained from toasting the Earth.
There is no need for further thought on the matter.
Expect more from Gore as long as msm refuses to expose his scheme. A recently created World Carbon Credit Bank is yet expecting him to deliver the “customers” to their satellite link. Ask Maurice Strong.
Art, you covered most of the U.S. but left out any mention of what might happen in the Pacific Northwest this winter. Inquiring minds want to know!
Yes, and he also failed to give information for California, specifically the SF Bay area where I live. As one who suffers during high heat, say 85F and up, I was very happy that this past summer we only had three hot spells with the rest of the summer being on the cool side. BTW isn’t winter supposed to be cold?
85? that sounds nice to me in the IE. Socal I should say, unfortunately Mr. Horn doesn’t prognosticate for the West coast.
We experienced a very cool Summer down here, with a few blasts of heat(+110) so 85 sounds just about right. Low Humidity, little hard core Monsoonals from the South, not so good for an A/C guy like myself, Mr Horn? California please?
It’s climate disruption! Get your facts straight you ignorant right wingers!
“global average temperature”
Please to explain how this number is generated when the standard error of measurement is greater than 1 degree C?
OK, I guess you’re one of the ones who hasn’t read Iconoclast’s post in a SciAm article subtly dissing Judith Curry:
Every paragraph a gem.
Dang… well put, even with the typos
The Satellite data are probably better than the land temperature records, which are a disgrace at best. And – believe me, I work in automation, and have tried really hard to help people understand how to calibrate thermocouples and other temperature sensors. It’s extremely difficult to get accurate readings… and I have not been able to get better than 1C over 100 degree range with any group of electronic sensors. We are very close to sea level, so I use boiling water and try really hard to use an ice bath to get them calibrated. Most engineers in solar (who buy our controls) don’t even know what cold junction compensation means.
True or not this is something my site has to take seriously. Two years ago we had a freak snow storm that basically cut off Goldstone (and Fort Irwin of course) from the rest of the world. This NASA complex is out in the middle of the desert to avoid radio interference but as a byproduct we are also only one good road in and out. We had some freaky snow (we’re in the desert after all, any snow is freaky!) that literally buried us out here. Trapping people on complex, preventing others from coming in and basically proving that those of us in the High Desert have no real preperation for cold weather.
Sounds like this year we’ll have a chance to see if we learned anything from that freak cold spell with another.
This is exactly what was predicted by the climate model of the 1970s (when I was an academic science editor). The view was that we were leaving a 60-year anomolous period of the most ideal weather experienced since the last ice age and would be slowly returning to the Holocene norm–summers that were both hotter and cooler and winters that were both colder and warmer. IOW, climatologists in the ’70s predicted precisely what we have experienced the last two-plus decades–more weather variability.
It is not at all hard to see the truth of this prediction with a graph of annual temperature highs and lows over the last 150 years or more. The effect particularly pops out at you if you can find a chart that depicts both the summer high and winter low for each year. From around 1920 to 1980, the line stays less jagged, that is, it reflects less variability. There are only three notable summer spikes during the period; one of which corresponds with the Dust Bowl.
Before 1920 and after 1980, there is more amplitude to the line, reflecting the weather variability we have been experiencing. It has always struck me as strange that this model, so recently the dominant scientific theory on climatology, has simply disappeared from all discussion of global climate trends, even though it rather obviously is doing a better job of predicting our current reality than do subsequent models.
Very interesting. My guess is that you can not get paid to use tried and true methods… especially if the edict is to PROVE AGW is valid. That is my guess at the answer.
Burn all the science books. Burn all the history books. That way no one will know anything unusual is happening. The extra carbon will mitigate the current cooling trend long enough for everyone to be fooled.
“record heat this summer”
should read:
“record urban heat island effect this summer”
Aside from scientific measurements and predictions, there’s this:
I live by the ocean, ten miles south of Los Angeles Airport. Can’t live in a much milder climate. We still sleep with the door open and the heater off.
First, we didn’t actually have a summer this year. Only a very few good, hot, beach days. Fourth of July was flat out cold all day. And the Pacific never warmed up.
Then, for the first time in thirty years, in September, two adult opossums nested separately in my garage and in an outbuilding.
Haven’t checked how wooly the caterpillars are this season, but when wild life that has stayed comfortably and safely outdoors for the last thirty years moves in, something tells me it’s going to get cold.
WOW, this means it’s going to be great to be an IOWAN this winter. All summer we shovel crap, now the time will pass more quickly when we have to shovel the snow away to get to the crap. If you don’t believe me ask our senators and congressmen.
Re: Comments 2 and 14, stop trying to do math in your head, use a calculator. The actual amount is 28.8%
Nope again. 387/302 x 100% = 128.15%.
C’mon, people! Grade 5 wasn’t THAT hard!
It’s no wonder climate science is so hard when we have people who cannot calculate a simple percentage increase.
For example, from 1910 to 2007 the PPM increased from 302 to 387 or 85 PPM.
The percentage increase since 1910 is therefore 85/302 x 100 = 28.14569%
Similarly from 1999 to 2007 the increase is ~ 4.88%
While I’m no fan of the political con job that is AGW, I do have a question or two. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 is steadily increasing, as this author quantifies.
One reason AGW had some initial legitimacy is the long-known physics of greenhouse gases. CO2 is a greenhouse gas as can be demonstrated in the lab. However, at current levels the other variables such as moisture and solar influx mask any attempt to segregrate the CO2 effects as well as the notorious, barely understood, seldom mentioned, interactions between variables.
At what concentration of atmospheric CO2 should we begin to worry? As levels go up, some processes will work against increasing concentrations (like absorption in the oceans or in land-based photosynthesis) so concentration will not be linear with emissions. Is it now?
BTW, I’m going to ask Santa Claus for new sweaters this Christmas, and maybe some warm socks too!
Forget global warming for a second and let’s talk about clean air. I lived in southern California when I was younger and I remember the yellow haze that hung over our head much of the year. Air polution is not good and we should find cleaner methods of producing energy for the sake of our lunges. I’m not against fossil fuels so long as we continue to make strides toward making them burn cleaner and reducing dependency because eventually we will run out of them.
I think right wingers need to keep in mind that eventually there will be a breaking point. We can only destroy the environment so long before we really mess things up. People have more power over the environment than we think. God gave man dominion over the earth and I believe it is only responsible that we take care of it as best we can.
Then you should be a happy camper:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007124356.htm
Maybe if the leftwingers would stop prancing around about CO2 being a pollutant the real world would concentrate more on real pollutants. They (you maybe?) are the ones who have set the environmental movement back decades with your blind devotion to the pseudo-science that is AGW, not we “rightwingers”. The money and attention diverted to this drivel could have been used to better purposes. As it is “green” is nothing more than a bad joke to anyone with a science degree.
Thank you for saying this.
Not only has the AGW scam taken attention away from real work to protect the environment; it’s worked to actually make it worse. Don’t believe me? Please do a study of Big Agri/biofuel interests in increased crop production and mono-culturing and resultant topsoil degradation, and please do a study of just how polluting solar power is in its production phases…and while your at it, please look into energy output vs. running input energy requirements for those windmills. In an attempt to “save the world from global warming/climate change/climate disruption/the flying spaghetti monster” many have unwittingly helped to drive the environment into the ground (and set up a situation by which many will starve or freeze). Good job!
Jane,
Yeah, enviros never want to talk about the toxicity of chemicals used to produce solar panels.
The Environmentalist movement is facing the same conundrum that Robert Redford’s character faced at the end of “The Candidate” — what do you do when you’ve won?
If you look at the list of complaints prior to the environmental legislation of the 1970s, nearly all of the goals have been achieved.
Cleaner air? Check.
Reduced particulates? Decreased SOx and NOx? Check and check.
Cleaner water? Check.
Elimination of long-persistence chemical like PCBs, DDT, etc? Again, check.
We drive more miles, faster, in cars that get twice the mileage (or more) of cars from the era of the “double nickel” speed-limit.
Leaded gas? High-sulfur diesel? Extinct.
Heavy manufacturing and its attendant pollution? Mostly exported to China.
Slush fund of taxpayer money to clean up polluted sites? Superfund powers — activate!
So what is a movement to do once they have achieved 99% of what they were seeking? The options are to wind down their foundations and organizations, or move the goalposts. Can’t let all those cushy foundation jobs go away, can we?
The bogeyman has been changed from SOx/NOx and acid rain to CO2, which has no individual health effects and is measured in ppm. The water contaminant we hear the most about is bisphenol-A, measured in ppb. The flap over arsenic levels at the beginning of the Bush Administration was entirely bogus, but entirely understandable if you see it as a threat to the goalpost-shifting strategy. They cannot let go of CO2 because all of their other levers to change society have become useless because they have all been addressed. The resistance to CO2-lowering societal changes is not just because of skepticism, it is because the current environmentalist lobby has forsaken the idea of As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) in favor of Zero Tolerance at any cost.
But “Left-Wingers” believe firmly in evolution and the Goddess Mother Earth above all. Therefore there is a contridiction here. The Earth will find the balance it needs. This might even include getting rid of humans. So, if you want to do things to save humans, then you might have to work against nature. And thus, Left-Wingers are seen for what they are. Hipocrits and condescending jerks thinking only with their hearts or desire to control others. Observe the weather, live with the weather, adapt to the weather.
Just because I identify myself as left does not mean I fit all of the characteristics that you ascribe to the left. I do worship God. I may not believe exactly as you, but my faith is as deep. I don’t know where I stand on evolution and frankly I don’t care. I do believe in Christian Charity and watching out for my fellow man (or woman). I actually have conservative beliefs and agree with many of the arguments presented on PJM. If you look at my post, you should have noted that I am not opposed to fossil fuel use but I am for conservation and alternative fuel sources simply because we can’t sustain ourselves forever if thing remain status quo. I also said my concern was with finding cleaner ways of burning said fossil fuels. You see a hipocrite when you read my post because you see Political beliefs as an all or nothing proposition. I, however, see it as a contium. I’m liberal on issues and conservative on others. I just happen to lean a little more left than right.
BTW. I have actually done the research some of the posters suggest I do. I see the arguments and to a certain degree, I have been made a convert. It’s ironic isn’t it? Logic and information can change my mind on some issues and bridge a gap. If I was one to get my feelings hurt, you may have undone the positive work your peers have done. Maybe if more conservatives would speak in the spirit of dialogue and discussion, more people like me, middle class black patriots would come over to your side.
Please excuse the typos as this was typed on my iPhone during my lunch break.
Sincerly,
a hipocritical jerk:-)
Hang in there Eli,
People who work for those big, bad corporations the left is always demonizing have families, breath air, drink water, etc. For every so called “scientist” sitting in an academic ivory tower throwing theories around there are hundreds of scientists and engineers actually designing and implementing cleaner, more efficient processes to advance mankind’s standard of living and make the environment a healthier place. . . and they all work for industry. I know, because I used to be one of them, and still work with many of them.
Go for a tour of a chemical plant someday if you can arrange it, then compare it’s cleanliness to any gathering of professional “environmentalists”. I think you will be shocked at the contrast.
Thanks for the support, information, and suggestions. I will definately do much of what you have suggested. I n paticular I will
go in the fieldtrip. I am even going to see if I can influence the sponsor of the environmental program at the school where i teach to take his kids on a trip like the one you suggest. In the end, if we want a sensible approach to preserving the progress we have made and continuing to make strides in the right directions (pun not intended), our kinds will need to take an educated, balanced approach to solving them when they take over. It may be too late for some of the old farts to change, perhaps the kids can.
Well said! I’m sort of right winged as far as fiscal, less government on my back and energy policy. And -I guess I’m right winged because I seek the truth -not a fight. That said, there is a lot of good insight and information on this website. Some people understandably can’t get past a single word such as your self labeling of being “Left.” And that’s too bad, for the reasons you posted! Anyway – we need people like you who can think and seek the truth.
Well “Dick”
There are plenty condescending jerks on the right wing who want to control others as well. The new age mysticism you attribute to the left has as much basis in reality as the bronze age mysticism you seem to prefer. Those of us who prefer to live in the real world are really getting tied of both sets of condescending jerks trying to use government to shove their self inflicted delusions down our throats.
since their politicians are determined to switch from coal to wind
Politicians have never had to “switch” to wind, because they’ve been running on wind since time immemorial.
As someone pointed out above, the new enviro-meme is “Climate Disruption.” The left will never give up and never stop mutating in its efforts to control our lives. They must be looked upon the same way as we would a deadly pathogen, so we need a more aggresive and effective preventive and treatment regimen. Selective euthanasia and sterilization are good combination to start with. These can be followed with an annual hunting season lasting 11 months, as well as mass pillow smothering events.
God gave man dominion over the earth and I believe it is only responsible that we take care of it as best we can.
Eli: only “right-wingers” are allowed to reference God. You just wandered off the liberal reservation and must be rehabilitated. Please report to liberal headquarters for a serial spanking from Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, and Rosie O’Donnell, who will also sit on your face.
That is why they changed the name from Global Warming to Climate Change. They looked at the data, and noticed it is not actually getting warmer. But rather than telling the truth, that there is no Global Warming, they changed the name to Climate Change, so they can blame the coming cold on capitalism as well. Climate Change is a really nifty word. The lefties had a stroke of genious to come up with it. Since the climate is always changing in some direction or another, they are now covered no matter what the data shows. Of course there will always be some old conservative curmugions that will actually remember the previous Global Warming predictions, but of course they are just unenlightened deniers, that cant beleive the clear data from uncontested science. Leftist environmentalists have been pulling this crap for years. In the 60′s it was Manmade Global Cooling, from the exact same people that later changed it to Global Warming, and now to Climate Change. The predictions, and the names change constantly, only the proposed solution, backed up by undeniable science, stays the same, worldwide socialist government.
I think we’ve moved on to “Climate Irritability”.
Nice article. A new book recommendation for anyone seriously interested in the subject…
“The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists” by Roy W. Spencer.
With cold comes drier conditions. Get ready for the noise machine to start screaming about AGW caused drought.
Could be that the bumper crop of watermelons is going to rot in the fields. Just as well; they were toxic anyway.
A cold planet limits agriculture & increases fuel consumption, ultimately killing more people than would a warmer planet.
If increased CO2 causes AGW than why aren’t we doing everything we can to increase CO2?
Because AGW is Bulls_hit. AlGore & Co, know it. It’s about societal control and stealing money from the stupid & naive.
Those who can’t understand how life on this planet is inexorably linked to the Sun and it’s energy fluctuations, are incapable of having a productive discussion about science with.
Actual pollution and energy conservation are completely different subjects; they are legitimate discussions that need to take place.
, “the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 369 parts per million to 387 ppm (parts per million) during this time. This amount is above the level of 302 ppm in 1910, when 20th century global temperature started to rise.”
OK, let’s take the math from the top:
1910: 302 ppm
1999: 369 ppm
2009: 387 ppm
Increase in ppm since 1910 = 387/302 = 1.28 = 28%
Increase in ppm from 1910 to 1999 = 369/302 = 1.22 = 22%
Increase in ppm between 1999 and 2009 = 387/369 = 1.048 = 4.8%
Art, please recall your school days and “show your math”. Otherwise
QED
Wait a minute! This cant be true! This has got to be another attempt by the vast right wing conspiracy to discredit Al Gore and his mission to save us from our evil(American) man made hell that is GLOBAL WARMING!!! When will all this petty resistance stop and we can just fall in line like good little sheep and do what Gore and the Leftwing tells us to do? They obviously know what is best for us, even if they dont follow their own advice doesnt mean we shouldnt.
So we’re back to the big scare from 1965, the coming ice-age – but with a bit more detail and nuance.
Maybe even one of these days some wild-ass scare-card of Paul Ehrlich’s will kinda turn out sorta right – like the MILLIONS STARVING!! – except this time the reason will be because of carbon cap-and-trade, and land wasted on subsidized biofuels.
CA has just had its coldest summer ever (2010). Even the vegetables, the few for which we still are allowed enough water to grow, didn’t ripen due to the coolness of the summer. It blows me away that with the disclosure of the “Global Warming” hoax originating out of East Anglia University, that the world, and my state of Peoples Republik of Kalifornia, continue to make economy destroying laws in the name of saving Gaia. But, if Al Gore can’t make money honestly he’ll make up “carbon credits” to become a billionaire. No less CO2, but now one can make money off it!
Darren wrote “So what is a movement to do once they have achieved 99% of what they were seeking? The options are to wind down their foundations and organizations, or move the goalposts. Can’t let all those cushy foundation jobs go away, can we?’”
You express half the truth eloquently. The other half is that many conservatives fought tooth and nail against most of the progress already achieved. Our job is now to sort out the greens’ need to continue their foundations with righties tendencies to oppose all environmental regulation. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.
I give righties credit for showing (me and many others) that AGW has NOT been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It seems clear that there IS significant warming. I agree that a world-wide taking of temperatures is so problematical that it makes for shaky “proof” of anything, BUT ALL glaciers in the US, Canada, and Iceland that I know of have retreated greatly in the last 50 years. However, the idea that this is unprecedented and caused by man is more BELIEF than science at this point. CO2 tipping points COULD be lurking underneath this phenomenon, but it has not been proved.
Lefties say, tax anyway, just to be safe; righties say, it’s all about the control and taxes. And God bless the United States of America.
Hasn’t it been shown the Arctic ice cap is shrinking while the Antarctic is growing? Something about a shift in the earth’s axis?
Now for the nasty part: I’ll exclude the thoughtful liberals who took science and stayed awake – the Demoncat elites are all artsy-fartsies who avoided the difficult subjects, but now proclaim on them at will.
We will know it is serious when the Obama Whitehouse breaks down and starts building shovel ready power plants around America’s geothermal energy sites.
We will know that hell has frozen over when they let American industry start using America’s Navy nuclear propulsion technology to build pre-fabricated truck portable nuclear power plants.
Hi Gang, I just published a science-based response to this misleading article on Skeptical Science, here: http://www.skepticalscience.com/La_Nina_cant_erase_warming.html
Come on over and have a look at the facts, then make up your mind.
JB
Art,
You make the puzzling claim that there has been no net global warming since 1999?? I would suggest you look at average global temperature measurements made from surface based sensors (NASA-GISS or HADCRUT) and from satellite based sensors (RSS or UAH) – both show continued warming of the atmosphere. In fact, world-wide, these last 12 months have been the warmest on record. The arctic sea ice and land ice in Greenland are both showing accelerated melting since 1999. Please, Art, look at the scientific data. In particular, please look at the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) satellite data of lower tropospheric temperatures – in spite of the current La Nina, they are among the highest on record (see http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ ).
It is devastating to science when such misinformation flows into the public slipstream.
Mr. Horn,
La Ninas and El Ninos do not create or eliminate heat. El Ninos transfer store heat from the oceans into the atmosphere; La Ninas transfer atmospheric heat into the ocean. The current La Nina cannot “cool” the planet, it can only cool the atmosphere for a limited period of time. Most of the excess heat resulting from Anthropogenic Global Warming is stored in the deep oceans, and at some point it will be released back into the atmosphere. Suggesting that a super-La Nina can reduce global temperatures permanently is misleading, as such an occurrence would violate the laws of thermodynamics and is therefore impossible.
Thank god (metaphorically)… Finally a voice with some reason and objectivity. I had to go to the bottom of the list to escape from all of the climate denier crazies. Two thumbs up
What? Do you mean with all this ‘global warming’, we’ll have a hard winter? Get real!
So… now for some solution based commentary on energy for the US. We have our own Yellowstone ‘hot spot’ just waiting for steam generating plants like CalPine in CA and Iceland. One doesn’t need to drill in the park of course, just get close. Return on investment would be immediate, little visual impact. No wind, no sun required. 24-7-365. Thoughts?
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