|
Post by swamprat on Sept 5, 2018 8:30:31 GMT -6
Yearly Temperature Anomalies, 1880 to 2017
(Anomalies are variances from normal.)
Go full screen
Fascinating to watch the years unfold! Light blue--slightly cooler; dark blue--much cooler; light orange--slightly warmer; darker orange--much warmer; red-- very much warmer! Check out this 40-second animation showing high and low temperatures of countries around the world over the period 1880 to 2017, created by researcher Antti Lipponen from the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
The animated timeline is based on historical and NASA satellite data.
U.S.A. is in the bottom row in the middle.
|
|
|
Post by randy on Sept 6, 2018 23:59:27 GMT -6
It is a myth designed to promote more control over the people and to promote vast new taxes Money and power are powerful motivations and all can wrung out of the people with the right sales pitch Go back to the old episodes of all in the family and listen to the meat head rant about global cooling and the coming ice age that will destroy man Didnt happen so now its global warming give me money and power over you and all will be well. Not a personal attack just one mans view of the present by looking at the past By now we were all supposed to be frozen pop sickles
|
|
|
Post by randy on Sept 21, 2018 10:51:40 GMT -6
The sun is going into a sun spot minimum cycle which means that it will get colder on earth for a while. One must consider the sun in all this conduciveness as it is the primary heat source. Things take on a life of their own independent of reality looking at the earth as an enclosed isolated capsule CArbon taxes involve billions in wealth transfers and tremendous power to control people world wide. Except China I think is exempt from all this. Tremendous wealth and power tempts many people to glaze over and become supporters of global warming
|
|
|
Post by randy on Sept 22, 2018 11:02:59 GMT -6
I forgot to mention that the minimum sun spot cycle will last 11 years. Soooo I would not worry about global warming for a decade or so. Reality never figures in political agenda. i will but a few extra cords of wood for winter thus year. mean while pay out extra in taxes and change your life style for the sky is falling
|
|
|
Post by jojustjo on Sept 28, 2018 23:22:08 GMT -6
I never have thought it a myth but I really hate the way global warming is being used by the government and politicians. I have a feeling they're not exactly on 'our' side ..most of the time.
|
|
|
Post by randy on Sept 29, 2018 22:43:29 GMT -6
money and power have always motivated those with hyper egos. You are talking about limitless billions in new taxes and power to rule the whole world. The whole world under the control of a handful of people there are alot of perks associated with ruling the world. A living god small S Back in the 1970s when I getting my Masters Degree it was global cooling New taxes and vast power needed to stop the next ice age in which we would all die. Global warming is the same paniced emotional reaction just warming substituted for cooling. All the rest is the same. Give me money and power
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Oct 15, 2018 13:41:31 GMT -6
.....and... the dialogue continues:Donald Trump says climate change not hoax, but takes aim at 'political agenda' of scientistsby Ben Riley-Smith, U.S. Editor 15 October 2018
Donald Trump has questioned whether climate change is “man-made” and suggested that world temperatures could start falling in the future.
The US president said during an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes show that he does not think climate change is a “hoax”, reversing his previous position.
However Mr. Trump claimed that some scientists have a “very big political agenda” and suggested there is no consensus about the cause of global warming.
“I think something's happening. Something's changing and it'll change back again. I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference,” Mr. Trump said.
“But I don't know that it's man-made. I will say this: I don't want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don't want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don't want to be put at a disadvantage.”
The comments come just days after the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] warned that the Earth’s temperature could rise 1.5C by as early as 2030.
One IPCC board member said at the time that the world had “the slimmest of opportunities remaining to avoid unthinkable damage to the climate system that supports life as we know it”.
Mr. Trump, who has been a climate change sceptic for at least half a decade, announced last year that he would be pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
He has also removed various emissions-reducing policies implemented by Barack Obama, his predecessor in the White House, and talked about the need to defend “beautiful, clean coal”.
Over the past six years Mr. Trump has frequently questioned the validity of climate change, calling it an “expensive hoax” and “nonsense”.
He often joked on Twitter about global warming whenever the weather was cold, once tweeting in 2015: "It's really cold outside, weeks ahead of normal. Man! We could use a big fat dose of global warming!"
During his 60 Minutes interview, Mr. Trump walked back his claim that climate change was a hoax, but questioned the cause, saying “you don't know whether or not that would have happened with or without man”.
Challenged over how scientists have said extreme weather conditions are getting worse, Mr. Trump replied: “You'd have to show me the scientists because they have a very big political agenda.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Mr. Trump – who the interviewer said appeared more confident in the role of president than during their last chat shortly after the 2016 election - defended a string of his policies and public comments.
Mr. Trump insisted he had showed respect to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, despite mocking her failure to recall key details of the alleged incident during a rally speech.
“You know what? I'm not going to get into it because we won. It doesn't matter. We won,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Kavanaugh denied the claim and has since taken up his seat on the Supreme Court.
Mr. Trump criticised Jim Mattis, his defence secretary, calling him “sort of a Democrat” and insisting that he knew more about the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [Nato] than Mr. Mattis. The comments fuelled speculation that Mr. Mattis could leave his post.
The US president defended saying at a rally that he and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, “fell in love”, insisting it was “just a figure of speech”.
Challenged that the words amounted to an embrace, Mr. Trump replied: “Let it be an embrace. Let it be whatever it is to get the job done.”
Mr. Trump also appeared to play down the seriousness of Russia’s disruptive actions abroad. Asked whether Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was “involved in assassinations” and “poisonings”, Mr. Trump replied “probably he is, yeah”, but added: “It's not in our country.”
The remarks follow the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, the Russian double agent, on British soil in March 2018, though the specific case was not explicitly mentioned during in the interview.
And on politics and Washington, DC, Mr. Trump said: “This is the most deceptive, vicious world. It is vicious, it's full of lies, deceit and deception.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/15/donald-trump-says-climate-change-not-hoax-takes-aim-political/
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Oct 15, 2018 13:42:43 GMT -6
.....and... from the other side:
Dire warning issued on climate change. We shrugged.
by Leonard Pitts October 15, 2018
What if the end of the world came and nobody noticed?
It’s not quite an idle question.
You see, something remarkable happened last week. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists working under the aegis of the United Nations, issued a report on our planet’s health. Turns out it’s worse than we thought. Barring prompt – and politically unlikely – measures to drastically cut carbon output within the next decade, they say we’ll begin to see worsening droughts, wildfires, coral reef decimation, coastal flooding, food shortages and poverty beginning as soon as 2040.
You can expect mass evacuations from the most heavily impacted areas. As one of the report’s authors, Aromar Revi, director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, told The New York Times, “In some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant. You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and 1 million people, but not 10 million.”
And we haven’t even gotten to the remarkable part yet. That has to do with our collective response to this doomsday prognosis. In a word, America shrugged. That’s a necessarily subjective analysis, but I’ll stand by it. Yes, news media dutifully reported the story and pundits dutifully sounded the alarm. But none of it seemed to quite register. Two days later, the story was pretty much over, our attention having already moved on.
You might correctly say this is to be expected, given the lack of environmental leadership from a White House that wants to bring back coal. But there’s also a subtler force at work.
Largely because of Donald Trump, you see, we live in a starkly different world than we did just three years ago. The unprecedented has become the ordinary, the emergency the everyday. Children in cages, MeToo, Robert Mueller, Stormy Daniels, Brett Kavanaugh, Jeff Sessions, North Korean nukes, election hacking, anonymous op-ed, administrative coup, EPA corruption, emoluments clause, NFL attacks, collusion confusion and lies, oh my.
It has become impossible to care about all you should care about, keep up with all you should keep up with. The human mind doesn’t have the bandwidth for it. Every day, you feel like you’re running uphill on an ever-accelerating treadmill with no stop button.
So then you read where the planet is melting, dire results expected soon, and you just shrug and file it away with all the other terrible things you’ll worry about when you get a chance. That’s understandable. But it presumes a luxury we don’t have – time. Again, this report says the world has 10 years in which to save itself – and we’ll spend at least two of those under Trump.
Always before, the hinge points of American history have somehow managed to find the people the times demanded: citizen soldiers at the founding, Union patriots at the unraveling, tough-minded strivers during depression and global war, American dreamers in the freedom years. But seldom before has the nation seemed as exhausted and fractured as it does now.
So the question of the moment is: What will this new hinge point bring out of us? The answer will come at the ballot box over the next two years. And the whole world waits with us to find out what we are. Are we truly the igannance, incoherence and chaos of the moment, or are we the sense of purpose and cando that have always before defined America at its crossroads?
If we say it’s the latter, then we should feel ashamed, chastised by our history. Because if that history tells us anything, it tells us this: America doesn’t shrug.
Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald.
|
|
|
Post by randy on Oct 19, 2018 23:36:29 GMT -6
I used to duel with Mr Pitts on the internet. He was raised by a single mother who had to work as a domestic to support him. He resented his mother not giving him the attention he wanted because she had to work This resentment of rich white people unfortunately shows in his past political commentary. I worked as a gardener to pay my way through college Honest work is honest work. In old episodes of all in the family mike rants about global cooling and the coming ice age. Now its global warming The sun is the big comtroling factor in global weather Until Kerry can figure out how to blame people for sun spots I will consider it all a chicken little story about the sky falling Run in circles and yell all you want to but leave me alone the sky is not falling.
|
|
|
Post by jcurio on Oct 21, 2018 11:17:35 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by randy on Oct 23, 2018 13:03:38 GMT -6
sum spots control the weather and climate. man is but a grain of sand on the beach Man can however be exploited and taxed for power and wealth for a few
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Nov 4, 2018 10:58:39 GMT -6
New study on ocean warming: 5 questions answeredBy EarthSky Voices in EARTH November 4, 2018
A study released this past week reports that oceans absorbed 60 percent more heat than previously thought. The study estimates that for each of the past 25 years, oceans have absorbed an amount of heat energy that is 150 times the energy humans produce as electricity annually.
By Scott Denning, Colorado State University
Editor’s note: A new study published October 31, 2018, by scientists in the United States, China, France and Germany estimates that the world’s oceans have absorbed much more excess heat from human-induced climate change than researchers had estimated up to now. This finding suggests that global warming may be even more advanced than previously thought. Atmospheric scientist Scott Denning explains how the new report arrived at this result and what it implies about the pace of climate change.
How do scientists measure ocean temperature and estimate how climate change is affecting it?
They use thermometers attached to thousands of bobbing robots floating at controlled depths throughout the oceans. This system of “Argo floats” was launched in the year 2000 and there are now about 4,000 of the floating instruments.
About once every 10 days, they cycle from the surface to a depth of 6,500 feet (1,981 meters), then bob back up to the surface to transmit their data by satellite. Each year this network collects about 100,000 measurements of the three-dimensional temperature distribution of the oceans.
The Argo measurements show that about 93 percent of the global warming caused by burning carbon for fuel is felt as changes in ocean temperature, while only a very small amount of this warming occurs in the air.
Normal cycle of an Argo float collecting ocean temperature and salinity data. Image via International Argo Program.
How dramatically do the findings in this study differ from levels of ocean warming that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported?
The new study finds that since 1991, the oceans have warmed about 60 percent faster than the average rate of warming estimated by studies summarized by the IPCC, which are based on data from Argo floats. This is a big deal.
Most of the difference comes from the earliest part of this period, before there were enough Argo floats in the oceans to properly represent the three-dimensional distribution of global water temperatures. The new data are complete all the way back to 1991, but the Argo data were really sparse until the mid-2000s.
The implication of faster ocean warming is that the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming is greater than we’d thought. We already knew that adding CO2 to the air was warming the world very rapidly. And the IPCC just warned in a special report that limiting global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels – a target that would avert many extreme impacts on humans and ecosystems – would require quickly reducing and eventually eliminating coal, oil and gas from the world energy supply. This study doesn’t change any of that, but it means we will need to eliminate fossil fuels even faster.
To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7 degrees F], the IPCC warns that greenhouse gas emissions would need to be drastically reduced over approximately the next decade. Image via IPCC.
What did these researchers do differently to arrive at a higher number?
They have measured tiny changes since 1991 in the concentrations of a few gases in the air – oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide – with incredibly high precision. This is really hard to do, because the changes are extremely small compared to the large amounts already in the air.
Some of these gases from the air dissolve into the oceans. The water’s temperature dictates how much it can absorb. As water warms, the amount of a gas that can dissolve in it decreases – that’s why a soda or beer left open on the kitchen table goes flat. That same temperature dependence allowed the scientists to calculate total changes in global ocean heat content from 1991 to now, just using very precise measurements of the air itself.
If this study is accurate, what does it suggest we should expect in the way of major climate change impacts in the coming decades?
This study did not address climate impacts, but they are already well known. As the world warms, more water vapor evaporates from both oceans and land. This means that when big storms develop, there’s more water vapor in the air for them to “work with,” which will produce more extreme rain and snow and resulting winds.
Greater warming will mean increased water demand for crops and forests and pastures, more stress on irrigation and urban water supplies, and reduced food production. More water demand means more forest fires and smoke, shorter winters with less mountain snowpack, and increased stress on ecosystems, cities and the world economy. Because of these effects, nearly every government in the world has committed to rapid emissions cuts to limit global warming.
What this study suggests is that the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than we previously thought. This means that in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, emissions will need to be cut faster and deeper.
WATCH VIDEO: Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe explains the consequences of two degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels.
How will we know whether these findings hold up?
There are other groups making precise gas measurements, and many of them have data going back to the 1990s. Others will repeat the analyses made by these authors and check their results. There will also be careful work to reconcile the increased warming rate of the oceans with the Argo temperature data, the surface air temperature record, atmospheric data from balloons and measurements made from satellites. The real world must be consistent with all of the observations taken together, not just a subset.
This study very cleverly used data from the composition of the air itself going back nearly 30 years. We didn’t have Argo floats back then, but air samples are still available that can be analyzed decades later. Using a longer record of warming is much better for estimating the rate, because it’s less sensitive to year-to-year variations than a shorter record.
These scientists have given us a new and independent way to assess the sensitivity of long-term global warming to changes in atmospheric CO2 levels. I expect the findings will indeed hold up, and that we will be hearing a lot more about this new method in the future.
earthsky.org/earth/study-oceans-absorbed-more-heat-questions
|
|
|
Post by randy on Nov 4, 2018 11:46:44 GMT -6
Making all things political and there fore open to getting money from the tax payers. The marches from Central America are the result of global warming as the farmers cant handle the raising fire storm of increasing heat. Reminds me that my father said when he in the Marianas in WWII seeing the world turret class the temp got up to 131 degrees and that was considered normal by the locals. He swam in the ocean daily to solve that among the eels and sharks By the way your supposed to feel guilty about the over heated farmers from Central America and give money and let them come in
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Nov 15, 2018 10:31:21 GMT -6
Researchers walk back major ocean warming resultBy Deborah Byrd in EARTH | November 14, 2018
Late last month, a team of researchers said Earth’s oceans had warmed 60% more than anyone had realized. Now that result appears unlikely, since a mathematician and climate contrarian has uncovered a scientific error.
This is good news. It is less certain today that Earth’s oceans are 60 percent warmer than we thought (although they may still be that warm). As reported in the Los Angeles Times on November 14, 2018, researchers with University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University have had to walk back a widely reported scientific result – based on a paper published in Nature last month – that showed Earth’s oceans were heating up dramatically faster than previously thought as a result of climate change.
The October 31 paper in Nature stated the oceans had warmed 60 percent more than outlined by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On November 6, mathematician Nic Lewis posted his criticisms of the paper at Judith Curry’s blog. Both Lewis and Curry are critics of the scientific consensus that global warming is ongoing and human-caused.
In his November 6 blog post, Lewis pointed out flaws in the October 31 paper. The authors of the October 31 paper now say they’ve redone their calculations, and – although they find the ocean is still likely warmer than the estimate used by the IPCC – they agree that they “muffed” the range of probability. They can no longer support the earlier statement of a heat increase 60 percent greater than indicated. They now say there is a larger range of probability, between 10 percent and 70 percent, as other studies have already found.
A correction has been submitted to Nature.
The Los Angeles Times reported that one of the co-author’s on the paper – Ralph Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography – “took full blame” and thanked Lewis for alerting him to the mistake. Keeling told the Los Angeles Times: "When we were confronted with his insight it became immediately clear there was an issue there. We’re grateful to have it be pointed out quickly so that we could correct it quickly."
In the meantime, the Twitter-verse today has done the expected in a situation like this, where a widely reported and dramatic climate result has had to be walked back. Many are making comments like this one:
Chuck Patriot Santa Dude Nellis "We always knew it was garbage but will the globalists agree with reality or deny it once more? ** 'We Really Muffed The Error Margins': Global Warming Report Rendered Worthless After Scientists Point Out Flaw In Ocean-Warming Survey."
But cooler heads on Twitter and elsewhere in the media are also weighing in, pointing out – as has been necessary to point out time and again – that science is not a “body of facts.” Science is a process. Part of the reason scientists publish is so that other scientists can find errors in their work, so that the errors can be corrected.
All scientists know this. The Los Angeles Times explained it this way: "While papers are peer-reviewed before they’re published, new findings must always be reproduced before gaining widespread acceptance throughout the scientific community…"
The Times quoted Gerald Meehl, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, as saying: "This is how the process works. Every paper that comes out is not bulletproof or infallible. If it doesn’t stand up under scrutiny, you review the findings."
Scott Anderson "Climate contrarian uncovers scientific error, upends major ocean warming study. Scientists don't cry "fake news", they accept the blame, fix the problem and move on..."
Bottom line: An error has been found in the October 31, 2018 paper published in Nature – showing an increase in ocean warming 60 percent greater than that estimated by the IPCC. The authors have acknowledged the error, and a correction has been submitted to Nature.
earthsky.org/earth/ocean-warming-60-greater-error-correction
|
|
|
Post by plutronus on Nov 20, 2018 2:42:50 GMT -6
In my mind, having actually studied meteorology for a couple of years at one juncture in my life's course, and that is, whether or not the global weather change is Human doings or rather just nature running its course? It appears that global-warming is eventing, but is it being caused by Human endeavors or not? Of course it could also be a combination of both, Human activity and nature!!
|
|
|
Post by jojustjo on Nov 24, 2018 3:29:17 GMT -6
I think nature tends to move in cycles. What would probably be again but the human factor hasn't helped things. We are late in turning eyes to oceans in trouble...filled with floating garbage..dumping junk that pollutes. I know it's a popular conspiracy theory and some people probably have dramatized it in an effort to get people to listen and start looking at serious problems. Not so serious for us...but for generations to come. We've driven animals from their habitats...put many on endangered lists and made others extinct. I pretty much can't think of a good thing mankind has done 'for' the planet that supports us all. We're pretty good at taking and not giving over all
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Nov 28, 2018 12:40:10 GMT -6
Nations must triple efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissionsImmediate, drastic action is needed to keep global warming under 2 °C, according to United Nations report.
Jeff Tollefson, 27 November, 2018
Governments of the world need to triple their current efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in order to prevent global warming of more than 2 °C by 2030, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in its annual “emissions gap” report.
Released on 27 November ― just a week before the latest UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland ― the UNEP report projects that current national policies would allow global greenhouse-gas emissions to rise by around 10% by 2030, compared with 2017 levels (see ‘Top emitters’):
But emissions would need to decrease by 25% over the same period to maintain a likely chance of limiting warming to 2 °C. Countries would need to reduce their emissions by 55% to restrict warming to below 1.5 °C.
If nations don’t increase their commitments to reducing greenhouse gases before 2030 — and follow through with emissions reductions — the 2 °C and 1.5 °C targets might move out of reach, the report states.
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07566-9
|
|
|
Post by jojustjo on Nov 30, 2018 12:07:41 GMT -6
Gosh Swampy..as I look around at the world today....I can't help but think....they don't care. They come up with conspiracy reasons or anything else to NOT care that we're destroying the planet...because no one wants to take the least responsibility for it. Too much trouble to recycle...or pick up a piece of trash. No respecting another person's rights or belief's...no respect period...but a lot of hatred out there. OR pompous..I'm right and you're wrong belief...I just give up on people period.
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Dec 1, 2018 20:36:00 GMT -6
This is a statue located in Berlin, entitled "Politicians Discussing Global Warming:"
|
|
|
Post by randy on Dec 2, 2018 10:31:54 GMT -6
Go back to 1970s when the big thing was global cooling and we were all going to freeze to death in a new ice age unless we funded the current mania of the time with limitless tax money. Old episodes of all in the family show mike ranting at archie about it. 1930s they had the idea energy certificates You would so many to spend in a year to limit the use of energy Whats you electrical consumption compared to someone in Uganda. You must be taxed on that to make things fair. Its about limitless money and world wide power. The promoters of this want to be living gods in reality with limitless power living in opulence. There are alot of perks associated with that. Have you got the govts money in your wallet The riots in France are based on new taxes on fuel. The people are not taking the shafting of the govt on the basis of the global warming myth. Global cooling was a myth, the 1930s worry over energy consumption was a myth and gloval warming the new money maker is a myth. Plant more trees to combat rising CO2 levels. Use nature not money transfers
|
|
|
Post by jojustjo on Dec 3, 2018 23:51:24 GMT -6
But no one is doing that Randy..they're still chopping down rain forests..polluting the oceans and piling waste on the planet.
|
|
|
Post by randy on Dec 4, 2018 11:18:27 GMT -6
Most people have heard that the Vikings once had colonies in Greenland That is because for three hundred years the climate was warmer on earth and Greenland was infact green instead of icy white. We survived that and there was no industrial pollution in the air at the time. It is better to be a little warmer than colder as the crops like the heat better that we eat. A former US president once worried that the Potomac had no ice on it and the snow was less than normal at the time. That was Jefferson in 1799 You cant ignore the sun spot cycle regarding climate change. Man has little real effect yet on the climate. having igannant fools messing with it is really dangerous and could result in catastrophe for your survival at all. Man really knows nothing long term about anything Wecan make guesses but reality is often different Once you start something it takes on a life of its own and your preconceived ideas fly out the window as reality takes over. The Greenland saga shows that climate variation is normal. how ever we are talking about limitless tax money and raw power that can create world wide royalty and opulent living standards for a few well positioned people ready to exploit the panic and train loads of money that will come in limitless anounts
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Dec 4, 2018 21:49:19 GMT -6
Sir David Attenborough Predicts the ‘Collapse of Civilization’ at UN Climate SummitBy Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | December 3, 2018
You're probably used to hearing Sir David Attenborough's sonorous, British voice describe the miracles of pufferfish courtship and blooming stink flowers in nature documentaries like "Planet Earth" and "Blue Planet." But today (Dec. 3), the naturalist and filmmaker delivered a far more somber monologue at the United Nations Climate Summit in Katowice, Poland.
"Right now, we're facing a man-made disaster of global scale," Attenborough told delegates from almost 200 nations. "Our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."
Attenborough was chosen to speak at the summit as part of the U.N.'s new "people's seat" initiative, which encouraged citizens of the world to share their personal messages and videos explaining how climate change has already affected their lives. Several of these messages were shared as part of Attenborough's speech today; they included footage of people standing in front of the ashen remains of their homes, which had been incinerated by wildfires.
"The world's people have spoken," Attenborough said. "Their message is clear. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now."
This meeting of the U.N. was convened so that leaders of the world could negotiate ways to turn their pledges made at the 2015 Paris climate accord into a reality. Per the Paris accord, 184 countries agreed to implement emissions-reduction policies to help limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels over the next century. Most of the world's nations are not on track to meet this goal; in fact, a global temperature rise of 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F) seems far more likely right now.
According to a recent U.N. climate report, even limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) this century could result in serious consequences for the planet's cities and ecosystems. Those effects include increased flooding and severe weather around the world, the destruction of up to 90 percent of the ocean's coral reefs, mass animal extinctions, and food shortages brought on by regular droughts. A recent U.S. climate assessment, released quietly over Thanksgiving weekend by President Donald Trump's White House, affirmed these findings and the impending danger of climate change.
"Leaders of the world, you must lead," Attenborough concluded. "The continuation of our civilizations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands."
www.livescience.com/64219-david-attenborough-warns-climate-change.html
|
|
|
Post by jojustjo on Dec 4, 2018 23:23:45 GMT -6
Well...market isn't doing too well...people who have money and investments are not trusting the economy...there are island sized piles of debris in the oceans...glaciers are melting... people are so full of hate and mean-ness...and and and...nothing short of absolute catastrophe is going to work Swampie..maybe when it's staring them in the face...or maybe they'll be praying for aliens to come save us and if they are very smart...they'll just leave the planet and not come back. We have done this and right up to the point of extinction...people will still be denying it. When you consider the over all intelligence of mankind.. flat earthers... seem like genius material.
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Dec 5, 2018 14:52:16 GMT -6
Sigh.....
|
|
|
Post by jojustjo on Dec 6, 2018 10:21:40 GMT -6
Oh I think they should market that
|
|
|
Post by skywalker on Dec 6, 2018 21:40:39 GMT -6
Technically we are still in an ice age right now. It's a glacial minimum rather than maximum but still an ice age. We are actually having very mild temperatures compared to what the earth usually is, which is either a heck of a lot hotter or a heck of a lot colder. I suggest people enjoy it while they can because when the climate decides to really change, which it will on its own one way or the other, people won't be able to do anything about it.
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Dec 10, 2018 10:46:47 GMT -6
What will the sun do next?
Many have predicted a weak sunspot cycle in the years ahead, but new work from India suggests otherwise. The work dashes speculations of a sun-induced global cooling of Earth’s climate in the coming decade. Here's the story:What will the sun do next?By Deborah Byrd in SPACE | December 10, 2018
This was Sunday’s sun – December 9, 2018 – as seen on the The Sun Now page of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Notice … no sunspots.
It is thought that the current sunspot cycle – cycle 24 – will approximately span the years 2008 to 2019. In other words, we haven’t reached the lowest ebb of the cycle yet, and no one knows exactly when it will come, but solar physicists think we’re probably close. This cycle has been an odd one, with fewer dark sunspots visible on the sun’s surface than expected. Now, with the next cycle due to start, we’re beginning to see projections for what will happen when the sun revs up again and begins producing more sunspots. Will the next sunspot cycle be more “normal” or will we again see a decreased number of spots?
On December 6, 2018, the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India (CESSI) reported that two of its scientists have made a prediction for the upcoming sunspot cycle. Solar physicist Dibyendu Nandi and his Ph.D .student Prantika Bhowmik devised a new prediction technique, which simulates conditions both in the sun’s interior, where sunspots are created, and on the solar surface, where sunspots are destroyed.
Earlier predictions (like this one) have suggested the coming sunspot cycle 25 will be weaker than the current cycle 24. But, based on their model, Nandi and Bhowmik believe cycle 25 might be similar to or even stronger than 24. They expect the next cycle to start rising about a year from now and to peak in 2024. Their work was published December 6, 2018, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications.
Why should we care?
Indeed, many people do care about solar activity, due to the sun-Earth connection. High activity on the sun can negatively affect some earthly technologies, for example, electric grids and orbiting satellites. So – as Nandi and Bhowmik point out – an accurate prediction of a coming solar cycle might help space scientists plan satellite launches and estimate satellite mission lifetimes.
Another sun-Earth issue has particularly grabbed the public’s imagination: a little-understood, possible link between activity on the sun and Earth’s climate. Keep reading, to learn more.
A statement from CESSI explained the climate question: "The current sunspot cycle, dubbed as solar cycle 24, is just ending, and it has been one of the weakest cycles in a century. In fact, over the last several decades, successive sunspot cycles have significantly weakened in strength, and some earlier studies based on simplistic statistical approaches have claimed a significant weakening of the sun’s activity is imminent, resulting in a loss of sunspot cycles.
The last such episode, known as the Maunder minimum, occurred between 1645 and 1715 and coincided with the Little Ice Age, a period of long winters and global cooling."
Was there a causative link between reduced sunspot numbers and the Little Ice Age? In other words, did weakened activity on the sun cause the Little Ice Age? If so, could a series of weak solar cycles cause another global cooling in the years ahead? If that happened, the cooling would be laid on top of the ongoing trend of global warming, which virtually all climate scientists agree is caused by human activities.
For scientists, there are two big problems with the idea of a sun-caused cooling (or a sun-caused warming, for that matter). First, no known physical mechanism has yet been found, explaining exactly how a change in solar activity affects Earth’s climate.
Second, scientists are aware of only one episode of decreased sunspots during a time of global cooling. The coincidence of the Maunder Minimum and Little Ice Age is suggestive, yes. But, for scientists, it doesn’t prove anything.
Still, the coincidence exists, and the idea is intriguing. And so it’s tempting to ask if a significantly weak sunspot cycle 25 – in the coming decade – would temporarily alleviate ongoing global warming. Scientists have, in fact, been asking this question.
According to Bhowmik and Nandi, all that sort of speculation may be moot. The sun might come roaring back into something like more “normal” activity in the decade ahead; it might begin producing many more sunspots. Please note that I’m putting “normal” in quotes because no one knows what “normal” really is, for the sun.
Bhowmik and Nandi sounded confident when they said: "[We] find no evidence of an impending disappearance of sunspot cycles and thus conclude that speculations of an imminent sun-induced cooling of global climate is very unlikely."
Are they right? Will their model prove to be predictive for solar cycle 25? Time will tell.
Bhowmik and Nandi successfully reproduced a century of sunspot observations with their model. The red curve represents the simulated (starting from the beginning of solar cycle 17) and predicted (cycle 25) solar activity. Image via CESSI.
Bhowmik and Nandi prediction for sunspot cycle 25 compared with the current sunspot cycle 24. The work suggests the coming sunspot cycle will be similar to or slightly stronger than the activity levels that are just ending. Image via CESSI.
Bottom line: Solar cycle 24 was weak, with fewer sunspots at its peak than expected. Many have predicted an even-weaker solar cycle 25 for the coming decade. But two scientists from India have a new predictive model, based on computer simulations, suggesting otherwise.
earthsky.org/space/solar-cycle-24-25-sunspot-predictions
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Dec 11, 2018 15:51:57 GMT -6
The Arctic Is Not Doing Well (at All)By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor | December 11, 2018
'Tis the season of snowy nights and reindeer pulling sleighs — except in the actual Arctic, where climate change is wreaking havoc on a real-world winter wonderland.
A new "report card" from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Arctic Program paints a dire picture for the frozen North. According to the program's 2018 Arctic Report Card, Arctic surface air temperatures are warming twice as fast as in the rest of the globe, while populations of wild reindeer and caribou have tumbled by 50 percent over the last 20 years.
And the Arctic is setting alarming new records all the time. Air temperatures from 2014 to 2018 in the Arctic were warmer than in any prior year dating back to 1900, according to the report. The past 12 years have shown the lowest extents on record of Arctic sea ice. And the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster than it has in at least 350 years.
"As a result of atmosphere and ocean warming, the Arctic is no longer returning to the extensively frozen region of past decades," the report's authors wrote.
Ailing sea ice The annual report is the 13th issued by NOAA's Arctic Program. One of the most dramatic changes in today's Arctic, the report found, is the loss of the region's sea ice. The winter maximum sea ice of 2018, measured in March, was the second lowest in 39 years of record-keeping, behind only 2017. In 1985, the report authors wrote, ice that had survived multiple years of freezing and thawing made up 16 percent of the Arctic's sea ice. Today, that number is a mere 1 percent. The thinner, single-year ice that makes up 99 percent of the ice pack is more prone to melt and flow.
Sea ice attached to the coast is also shrinking in area, extending only about half as far offshore in the modern era as compared to the 1970s.
Sea ice is disappearing all over the Arctic, the report's authors found, and in every month of the year. Average sea-ice thickness is also declining. Changes in the Arctic extend outward, the report's authors added, as warming in the far north seems to be altering ocean and atmospheric circulation, stacking the deck for extreme snowstorms like the "Beast from the East" polar vortex that hit the United Kingdom in February 2018.
Impacts on animals Warming temperatures, lost sea ice and long-term declines in snowpack on land have caused chaos for the Arctic's wildlife. While reindeer are mythologized in Christmas carols, real herds are suffering. Wild reindeer and their fellow foragers, tundra caribou, have been in decline since the 1990s, according to the report. Where there were once 4.7 million animals combined, there are now 2.1 million. Of 22 herds being monitored by researchers today, 20 are on the decline.
Climate is to blame for much of the decline, according to the report. Longer, warmer summers mean more parasites and heat stress for the winter-adapted grazing animals, along with a greater risk of grass-killing drought.
Meanwhile, toxic algal blooms driven by warming waters represent a new threat to marine life in the Arctic, the researchers wrote. Algal toxins have been found in ill or dead animals ranging from seabirds to seals to whales.
"Continued warming of the Arctic atmosphere and ocean are driving broad change in the environmental system in predicted and also unexpected ways," the report's authors concluded. "New and rapidly emerging threats are taking form and highlighting the level of uncertainty in the breadth of environmental change that is to come."
www.livescience.com/64278-arctic-dire-report.html?utm_source=notification
|
|
|
Post by swamprat on Dec 14, 2018 11:38:08 GMT -6
Mountain of Evidence Confirms: Climate Change Is Really, Really Bad for Human Health and Well-BeingBy Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | December 14, 2018
It's now beyond official: Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, pose a danger to public health and welfare, according to an exhaustive review that looked at 275 scientific studies published over the past nine years.
Researchers did the report to investigate whether the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2009 Endangerment Finding, which found that greenhouse gases pose a risk to human health, still held up. The new study showed that there is now even more evidence that greenhouse gases are harming human health and welfare. The investigation also found an additional four areas, not listed in the original report, in which greenhouse gases threaten people.
"There's absolutely no scientific basis for questioning the Endangerment Finding," review lead researcher Philip Duffy, president and executive director of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, told Live Science. "The case for endangerment is stronger than ever."
What is the Endangerment Finding? The original Endangerment Finding was a long time in the making. It began when Massachusetts and other states sued the EPA during President George W. Bush's administration, asking the agency to regulate greenhouse gases. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that not only does the EPA have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, but it also can't refuse to do so if these pollutants are found to endanger people.
"The Supreme Court said 'if you determine that greenhouse gases are dangerous, then you have to regulate them,'" Duffy said. "But, of course, the Supreme Court wasn't itself going to say whether greenhouse gases are dangerous. That's a scientific process not a legal one. So, the EPA undertook the scientific assessment of the dangerousness or not-dangerousness of greenhouse gases."
In December 2009, the EPA released that report, which found that greenhouse gases do endanger human health and welfare by causing climate change. The administration of President Barack Obama used this finding to implement new regulations, such as the Clean Power Plan and stronger vehicle mileage standards for cars and light trucks, Duffy said.
But now, people in and out of President Donald Trump's administration have discussed overturning or revisiting the endangerment finding, Duffy said. In response to these statements, Duffy and his colleagues decided to look at scientific studies published since the endangerment finding came out, to see whether the science strengthened or weakened the case for endangerment.
What the science shows The new review grouped the findings into different categories: public health, air quality, agriculture, forests, water resources, sea level rise, infrastructure and wildlife. The four new categories include ocean acidification, national security, economic well-being and violence. Here are more in-depth looks at several of them.
Overview of public health People in more than 200 U.S. cities have an increased risk of premature death because of future warming, the researchers found. Extreme heat is linked with sleep loss, kidney stones, low birth weight, violence and suicide. Exposure to ozone and other air pollutants, including smoke from forest fires, can be bad for human health. Extreme weather events intensified by climate change can lead to physical trauma, disease outbreaks, interruption of health care delivery and mental health problems. Rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels are also increasing the length of pollen season, which affects people with allergies. Certain crops are expected to produce fewer nutrients. Population displacement and armed conflict can also amplify risks to human health.
Water resources With less snowpack in the mountains, the West and Southwest may experience more droughts. Reduced snowpack can lead to reduced river flow, which can threaten rare and endangered species, such as salmon and wolverines. Climate change is also expected to erode water quality in the United States because of nutrient loading (such as from fertilizer or animal waste), especially in the Midwest and Northeast.
Sea level rise High sea levels will increase the risk to coastal communities, economies and infrastructure, largely because of flooding, erosion and extreme events. These effects can lead to displacement through "climate gentrification," in which people living at higher elevations have higher-priced properties. The movement of goods among major port cities will likely be affected, too, causing economic disruptions. Sea level rise may also disrupt the U.S. military, as well as disaster and humanitarian relief efforts.
National security The United States' existing security will likely need to change as the planet warms. For example, in the Arctic, reduced sea ice will clear the way for more Chinese trade routes and Russian oil and gas extraction, possibly causing tensions between these countries and the U.S., the researchers wrote.
Economic well-being An increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) over 75 years is expected to permanently reduce U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by about 3 percent. The U.S. GDP is expected to be about 4 percent greater if warming is limited to 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C) than if it's 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) above pre-industrial levels. Economies in poorer countries are expected to have an economic burden from climate change that is about five times larger than that of wealthier counties, the researchers found.
Violence and instability Rising temperatures and increased rainfall can amplify violence and instability. In the U.S., higher temperatures are associated with higher rates of domestic violence, rape, assault and murder. Warmer periods may also elevate the risk of self-harm, including suicide, emerging evidence suggests.
Takeaway message These findings "highlight this contrast between the science and the policies," Duffy said. "The scientific evidence is going in one direction, and the policies are going in exactly the opposite direction."
But this report shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, said Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York, who wasn't involved with the review.
"If you've been paying attention, the Endangerment Finding in 2009 was very well-reasoned, and it's only gotten stronger since that time," Smerdon told Live Science. "It's basically a tsunami of evidence in support of the fact. People have very clearly connected the changing climate, which we're causing, to the downstream impacts."
The review also drives home that climate change will affect everybody, not just people in distant lands.
"Reports like this all point out that every one of us will be impacted by climate change in different ways, and it's going to be in all of our backyards," Smerdon said. "It's not something that's going to be far away."
The review was published online yesterday (Dec. 13) in the journal Science.
www.livescience.com/64300-climate-change-endangers-human-health.html
|
|