This is a one off

B_spiker067

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There had been a great discussion about global warming several months ago here on LPSG (led by JA, Dong and others). And not that things have changed much but....

Thought I'd ask people what their relationship with science would be if global warming was in fact as described in the below link (i.e. not really anthropogenic). What does this do for your belief system? Gotta try and make the banned wish they hadn't been :)

DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling


World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
 

kudo451

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Well one year of a rapidly cooling climate, does not the end of global warming make. Personally I expected to see some cooling as the Earth's atmosphere begins to absorb many of the changes that global warming has already created.
I mean global warming is not just about warming it is about rapid and massive shifts in our atmosphere like a convection oven, which can heat its contents more effectively with convecting air than a conventional oven can without it. I am sure there are some climate models that have already incorporated this data and these expectations.
 

dong20

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Global Warming is rather a misnomer.

Interesting, info although it doesn't change my view that too much focus tends to be placed on the warming aspect, at least by many who argue it's 'not that bad if it gets a bit warmer in Alaska'. Such a narrow focus on one element drives me crazy, but it's more a problem of perception than science. :rolleyes:

For me, the issue is really around climate change - one element of which is warming. We really don't know enough about the complex climatic and environmental systems we depend on to be sure enough about the precise impact we're having on them, but I'm quite sure we are having an impact.

One of the scenarios I found most interesting is warming>induces ice cap melting> decreased Atlantic salinity>cause the gulf stream to stop>causing a rapid cooling, even a 'ice age' in the Northern hemisphere.

There's evidence this has happened in the past.

Britain faces big freeze as Gulf Stream loses strength - Times Online
Will the Gulf Stream stop in our time? — Norwegian High Performance Computing
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Warming could bring colder UK winters

The earth is a finely tuned system, shortsighted activity by humans runs a risk of causing it to undergo a minor 're-tuning', we may be casualties of that adjustment, along with millions of other species. Assuming a massive asteroid strike doesn't finish us off first!
 

B_spiker067

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My points would be few and simple.

As you say Dong we do affect our environment. The fining of an estimated 100 million sharks a year is unconscionable and far more of a threat to mankind than what global warming can be attributed to anthropogenic sources. Another threat is deforestation in both the Southern AND Northern hemispheres.

People have taken science and made it into something that it is not, a religion. Science is merely a view of the reality we perceive and it need not be reality - actual reality (think along the lines of evolution killing creation). It is a tool nothing more. It is too often used as a stick to beat faith down with by people illiterate in science, who often failed it in high school.

We have the great environmental movement in China being the banning of single use chopsticks. Never mind that these chopsticks are made from fast growing bamboo and soft woods. But this is an example of the exercised value of science in China, sadly comic. Maybe they should rather stop eating shark fin soup and working on rhino horn dust to get their penis enlargement going on.

I think it probable that this global warming will become a hoax in people’s minds and when science really has a warning to put forth some business interests are going to effectively undermine that effort by recalling this fiasco. Then what?

P.S. Take care y'all.
 
M

Mr Ed in Mass

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My points would be few and simple.

As you say Dong we do affect our environment. The fining of an estimated 100 million sharks a year is unconscionable and far more of a threat to mankind than what global warming can be attributed to anthropogenic sources.

Oh my god !,they're fining sharks now? What's the average fine, $100. ?
Damn that Al Gore.