Extreme is the New Normal

[Alex123]

Dear Hanzee, Kim, All,

Some people criticize oil and gas industry, and yet they use the technological conveniences brought by those very same technologies.

I wonder how people would get to work riding in a bicycle in a -20 temperature. When you travel to distant places on other continents, most likely you are using a jet plane. When you go to the supermarket to buy your food, I bet that in most cases the food was brought there by a truck (burning diesel or gasoline). Most of us used a car or a bus to get to the supermarket to buy groceries. Another usage of this carbon based technology.

The plastic bags in which you carry your food, or plastic bottles for water, or even most of the stuff you wear, was made or delivered to you or shops in dependence on the technologies that some demonize.


I would like GW to be the case. It is cold in Canada. It is much harder to survive in a cold climate rather in than in warm climate. Try to be without power when it is freezing outside vs when it is hot outside. Former is dangerous, the latter is just inconvenient.


RE: Original post.

Today's changing weather is NOT extreme if we examine the history of the planet. There have been very hot and cold climates as now. The natural cataclysms existed long before Homo Sapients. Ice has been growing and melting long before us. To be strict, it seems that the planet spend more time in the hot phases and today we live in one of the coldest periods that the Earth has had in its 4.5 billion history. Greenland has an arctic climate now, it used to grow palm trees (it had hot climate) in fairly recent epoch. So warming up of the Earth would more likely be nature reverting to a normal, more warm climate. Nothing to raise fear about if the rise in temperature is the return to normal temperature that was for millions of years. I surely hope that this is the case that Earth is warming, and not a blip before us going into another ice age where there is 1 mile of ice over New York and many other cities in Northern Hemisphere. That, global cooling, would be much more worse than global warming.

[Hanzze]

_/\_

[Kim OHara]

On one hand, it is kind of perversely interesting to see how long this can last.

It's a reflection of samsara, a pattern that repeats the same thing over and over, in just a slightly different way each time, never ending as long as clinging by at least 2 people continues. What is being clung to -- the need to be right.

Hmmm ... examines motivations ... nope, I don't think I'm clinging to the need to be right.
Maybe a bit of clinging to the idea that I can help someone else be right. Being a teacher for twenty years or so can do that
From my POV, it's pretty simple:
I know that it's daytime here now. If anyone tells me it's night, they are wrong.
I know that the earth goes round the sun. If anyone tells me the earth goes round the moon I will tell them that, yes, one can nominate the moon as the centre of movement but it's a pretty peculiar thing to do and tell them why.
I know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and our CO2 emissions are starting to cause a lot of trouble, pretty much the same way I know about the earth and the sun. If someone denies it, I will try to put them straight. Why do I want them to know the truth? Because their error harms all of us - only a little bit, true, but if there are enough of them then the political action we need gets stalled (as it did for so long under the Republicans, if you remember).

As for Alex, I don't know his motivations. Perhaps he'll tell us?


Kim

[Alex123]

Hello Kim, all,

A picture is worth a thousand words. Please note that within only the past ~350,000 years (a tiny fraction of Earth's 4.5 billion history) there have been 3 major rises in temperature long before modern industralization. Today's rise is neither unique nor extreme when compared to rises in temperature ~150,000 or ~250,000 or ~350,000 years ago.

If those spikes in temperature 150K, 250K, and 350K have a natural explanation, then current rise in temperature can also have natural only explanation.

There is no need to add unneccesary and un-needed factors when natural causes can explain everything. See the chart.

co2Alex.JPG (59.49 KiB) Viewed 3239 times

[Kim OHara]

Hi, Alex,
I asked you a question a while ago and said that I would ignore anything else you posted until you answered the question.
So far, I'm ignoring. Until we know why you reject the weight of genuine climate science, debating individual facts and factoids will get us nowhere.

Kim

I asked the same question in a slightly different way, too:
Why do you choose to believe one set of people you don't know rather than another set of people you don't know?

I am not going to pay any attention until you answer either or both of those questions, and I doubt that anyone else here will do so.
At the moment you are not asking questions, let alone smart questions. You are repeating other people's pseudo-questions and pseudo-science.


Kim

Alex,
If all this is going to be any good to anyone, you need to participate in a dialogue.

Kim

[Alex123]

Kim,

I've posted reasonable questions, such as in
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 80#p113327" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


I understand that those graphs really complicate the issue by pulling a rug under their main arguments and scare tactics. If nature could do it before, and if explanation of rapid rise before could have purely natural explanation, then so is today. No need to add un-needed factors.

Today's changing weather is NOT extreme if we examine the history of the planet, even as short as 350,000 of years. There have been very hot and cold climates as now. The natural cataclysms existed long before Homo Sapients. Ice has been growing and melting long before us. To be strict, it seems that the planet spend more time in the hot phases and today we live in one of the coldest periods that the Earth has had in its 4.5 billion history. Greenland has an arctic climate now, it used to grow palm trees (it had hot climate) in fairly recent epoch. So warming up of the Earth would more likely be nature reverting to a normal, more warm climate. Nothing to raise fear about if the rise in temperature is the return to normal temperature that was for millions of years. I surely hope that this is the case that Earth is warming, and not a blip before us going into another ice age where there is 1 mile of ice over New York and many other cities in Northern Hemisphere. That, global cooling, would be much more worse than global warming.

[Kim OHara]

Kim,
I've posted reasonable questions, such as in
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 80#p113327" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I understand that those graphs really complicate the issue by pulling a rug under their main arguments and scare tactics.

Alex,
(1) There is no question in the post you link to.
(2) The graphs are irrelevant as I have said before. Much of the material you have posted is factually incorrect as well as irrelevant, and I'm ignoring all of it.
(3) Your post -again- fails to answer the question in my post that it purports to respond to. That is not dialogue and not polite. You will be shouting into a void until you do answer - as thoughtfully as you can manage - that fundamental question.
With metta,
Kim

[Alex123]

Hello Kim,

Kim,
I've posted reasonable questions, such as in
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 80#p113327" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I understand that those graphs really complicate the issue by pulling a rug under their main arguments and scare tactics.

Alex,
(1) There is no question in the post you link to.

If nature itself could produce those rapid spikes in temperature before, why can't it be responsible for it today? Today's spike is neither more rapid nor bigger.

(2) The graphs are irrelevant as I have said before. Much of the material you have posted is factually incorrect as well as irrelevant, and I'm ignoring all of it.

They are fully relevant. Why?

Because they show that temperature can rise high and quickly NATURALLY and without any human near-zero contribution. As you can see, modern rise is neither more extreme nor different from previous rises.

If natural-only explanation can be used for those spikes such as at ~150K, 250K, and 350K years ago - Why can't the same explanation be used today?

Why complicate the matter by adding un-necessary anthropogenic cause if nature is sole and sufficient explanation itself?

(3) Your post -again- fails to answer the question in my post that it purports to respond to. That is not dialogue and not polite. You will be shouting into a void until you do answer - as thoughtfully as you can manage - that fundamental question.
With metta,
Kim

There is no dialogue because AGW folks can't answer those questions. So at best, they deny the science that shows the full picture - that climate change was happening for a long period of time, and today's change is neither unique, nor more rapid or extreme. Humans are really insignificant with their 0.00 something% contribution to an atmosphere of a gas (CO2) that doesn't even cause GW. CO2 is used by plants, so it is actually good for them. Today it seems there us relatively little amount of this necessary plant food.

http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 40#p112619" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't find it very believable to call AGW scientific, and deny all the scientific data that strongly rejects it. We can definitely call AGW an eco-religion, and beyond scientific disproof - but then AGW is profitable faith based religion that pays well. It is a great way to add more taxes.

CO2 lags an average of about 800 years behind the temperature changes-- confirming that CO2 is not the cause of the temperature increases. One thing is certain-- earth's climate has been warming and cooling on it's own for at least the last 400,000 years, as the data below show. At year 18,000 and counting in our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age, we may be due-- some say overdue-- for return to another icehouse climate!http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html

Please explain the cause of those 3 spikes before humans invented ways to burn carbon fuel, and I'll tell you the reason for the 4th spike. If Nature is sole and sufficient reason for fluctuating temperature, then so is it today.

co2Alex.JPG (59.49 KiB) Viewed 3200 times

[poto]

Looks like less extreme is the new normal. At least according to global cyclone activity, we are near historical lows in both frequency and intensity of cyclones.

The total number of storms experienced globally in the last 12-months was 68, which is still near a record-low of 66 of last month.

source: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/

[alan]

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/11/s ... cord-lows/

[poto]

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/11/s ... cord-lows/

Perhaps it would benefit you to learn more about UHI effect and the numerous problems with our surface stations.

Such problems taken into consideration, I am not surprised to see temperature records hit record highs more frequently.

[Kim OHara]

Perhaps it would benefit you to learn more about UHI effect and the numerous problems with our surface stations.

Such problems taken into consideration, I am not surprised to see temperature records hit record highs more frequently.

Hello, Poto,
The first is now routinely taken into account by reputable climate scientists and the second makes a minor problem look significant.
Can you direct us to references which show the actual errors in trend measurements due to these effects?
(Note to everyone else: please refrain from supplying them. It would be good for Poto to find them for himself.) (I am, unfortunately, a teacher first and last.)

Kim

[Kim OHara]

Extreme is the new Normal: recent news headlines
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 134887.htm La Nina the strongest in almost a century
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 134743.htm US braces for new round of snow
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 133571.htm Brisbane council faces $440m clean-up bill
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3113247.htm Brazil, Sri Lanka also struggle with flooding

Kim

[Alex123]

Extreme is the new Normal: recent news headlines
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 134887.htm La Nina the strongest in almost a century
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 134743.htm US braces for new round of snow
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011 ... 133571.htm Brisbane council faces $440m clean-up bill
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3113247.htm Brazil, Sri Lanka also struggle with flooding

Kim

The Earth's climate has been changing for 4.5 Billion years. There have been much hotter periods of time than today, and levels of CO2 generally stayed above 1,000 ppm for hundreds of millions of years vs 390ppm today.

There have been cataclysms as big as today's long ago.


Today's "rise" (compared to ice age, not compared to other more common times) is neither unique nor extreme when compared to rises in temperature ~150,000 or ~250,000 or ~350,000 years ago.

If those spikes in temperature 150K, 250K, and 350K have a natural explanation, then current rise in temperature can also have natural only explanation.

There is no need to add unnecessary and un-needed factors when natural causes can explain everything.

[poto]

Hello, Poto,
The first is now routinely taken into account by reputable climate scientists and the second makes a minor problem look significant.

How nice of you to contradict yourself.



At least you admit there is a problem. BTW, the surface stations issues and UHI are part of the same problem. It's more than a minor issue, it's a corruption of the data.

Can you direct us to references which show the actual errors in trend measurements due to these effects?
(Note to everyone else: please refrain from supplying them. It would be good for Poto to find them for himself.) (I am, unfortunately, a teacher first and last.)

Kim

OK, I'm not nearly as invested in this issue as you are. So, I'm not going to waste my time on a data scavenger hunt just to have you dismiss it anyway. I have more productive things I should be doing, like working or spending more time sitting.

You don't seem to understand that as the person screaming FIRE, you have the burden of proof. You have failed and continue to fail to provide any proof that humans are causing more extreme weather events. I see no signal from humans, not in the ice caps, not in the cyclone activity, nothing. Furthermore, this supposed warming that you keep exclaiming doesn't seem to be providing any additional energy for storms, quite the opposite. Why do you ignore the record low cyclone activity? Doesn't that directly disprove your argument of more frequent and extreme weather?