I agree Marvin
Why is it so political polarised?
I think Republicans tend to be more conservative and skeptical. They wont endorse any change in the status quo because they tend to believe in the system and revel in the positive capacities of humankind. And unfortunately climate change has been labelled as something for Lilly livered liberals and tree-huggers. Democrats or left leaning folk tend to be dubious of the system and human intentions and more open to change.
And it has become polarised because people think they have a right to an opinion on it. Opnions are just that, they tend not to be based on fact but more peer group values and prejudicies. Even within the scientific community we know how stuck in the mud and biased people's opinions are. We also know how powerful a tiny bit of disinformation can be, ufology has been dismissed because of it.
Just a few bits of bad press on the part of the 'climate change' brigade, the leaked emails over egging the pudding, Al gore's tiny mistake in his lecture have just compounded the already skeptical beliefs of the wavering right. The right wing press has just fanned the flames printing any story it can find undermining climate change beliefs.
It should be down to the facts which are now undeniable. Instead it's the usual who can shout the loudest and play the dirtiest in the school playground wins the argument. We proclaim to be so intelligent but we are barely out of the jungle.
We need to grow up and act responsibly not chose what we want to believe because it suits us.
It is still a debate because so much is yet undetermined and interests keep pushing for quick remedies which will reap enormous profits to cronies of the powerful. It's all about hurry, hurry spend enormous sums on unproved cures and fixes. Science does not work well with urgency, propaganda, and hysteria.
Has any one seen this:
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2014/...me-in-decades/
It gives one pause....
Mmm, yes, very curious, very interesting...
Longeyes vs CharliePrime. Climate change is very widely accepted among professional climatologists in the academic community, for every instance of a cooling report there are dozens of reports of warming. Precipitation which correlates strongly with warming is increasing in individual storms, though the overall precipitation pattern too is also changing. The atmosphere is a four dimensional environment: even when temperature might not rise, or might even cool at any one spot in the Earth's climate, over a full year those dynamics will show persistent changes vs those that had existed in the past. Example: glaciers which are "growing" are really only just on the move. A cold, old, glacier to human perceptions is frozen in place and moves, or grows only in very slow measures. Glaciers also move, or appear to grow, when increased precipitation adds to the mass and weight of the snow and ice within that glacier. Those of us oldsters with good memories see these differences, but the complex climate models back up those impressions with real data. Somehow the deniers seem to feel they are entitled to their own data to the exclusion of the whole greater world of real world observations.
Last edited by majicbar; 07-30-2014 at 11:35 AM.
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/fi...013225_lrg.jpg
The Retreat of Yakutat Glacier : An indicator of change.
Located in the Brabazon Range of southeastern Alaska, Yakutat Glacier is one of the fastest retreating glaciers in the world. It is the primary outlet for the 810-square kilometer (310-square mile) Yakutat ice field, which drains into Harlequin Lake and, ultimately, the Gulf of Alaska.
The Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the glacier and lake on Aug. 13, 2013. Snow and ice appear white and forests are green. The brown streaks on the glaciers are lateral and medial moraines.
Over the past 26 years, the glacier’s terminus has retreated more than 5 kilometers (3 miles). What is causing the rapid retreat? University of Alaska glaciologist Martin Truffer and colleagues pointed to a number of factors in their 2013 study published in the Journal of Glaciology. The chief cause is the long-term contraction of the Yakutat Ice Field, which has been shrinking since the height of the Little Ice Age.
Once part of a much larger ice field, Yakutat has been contracting for hundreds of years. As other nearby glaciers retreated, Yakutat ice field was cut off from higher-elevation areas that once supplied a steady flow of ice from the north. With that flow cut off, there simply is not enough snow falling over the low-elevation Yakutat ice field to prevent it from retreating.
Beyond this natural change, human-caused global warming has hastened the speed of the retreat. Between 1948–2000, mean annual temperatures in Yakutat increased by 1.38° Celsius (2.48° Fahrenheit). Between 2000 and 2010, they rose by another 0.48°C (0.86°F). The warmer temperatures encourage melting and sublimation at all ice surfaces exposed to the air.
In the past few years, the breakdown of a long, floating ice tongue has triggered especially dramatic changes in the terminus of Yakutat glacier. For many years, Yakutat’s two main tributaries merged and formed a 5-kilometer (3-mile) calving face that extended far into Harlequin Lake. In the past decade, satellites observed a rapid terminus retreat and the breakup of the ice tongue in 2010. As a result, the calving front divided into two sections, with one running east-west and another running north-south.
> More information and annotated images
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey
Caption: Adam Voiland
Interesting article: Global warming slowdown 'could last another decade'
The hiatus in the rise in global temperatures could last for another 10 years, according to new research.
Scientists have struggled to explain the so-called pause that began in 1999, despite ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The latest theory says that a naturally occurring 30-year cycle in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the slowdown.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28870988
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it.
- Jef Mallett
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
- Charles Darwin
How quick temperatures will rise after the ten year hiatus ends? Seems far off, yet in reality isn't. Often we hear, watch and read that future wars will be fought over food and water.The hiatus in the rise in global temperatures could last for another 10 years, according to new research.
However, they caution that global temperatures are likely to increase rapidly when the cycle flips to a warmer phase.
Climate change...are we there yet?
The thing is we are slowly and in perceptively inching toward the end of the inter glacial warming period. Ever so slowly the boat is beginning to rock and many scientists I've read believe we will see a period not unlike the Maunder. I hope it doesn't do it frankly, as I like to eat, but it is definely showing signs of slipping toward the colder side.
That said. Take a look at this Scottish lad. Ben Nevis is a sure fire indicator of significant cooling.
Just remember weather is not climate, and vice versa.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-...lands-28885119
A team of climbers and scientists investigating the mountain's North Face said snowfields remained in many gullies and upper scree slopes.
On these fields, they have come across compacted, dense, ice hard snow call neve.
Neve is the first stage in the formation of glaciers, the team said.
The team has also encountered sheets of snow weighing hundreds of tonnes and tunnels and fissures known as bergschrunds.
The large, deep cracks in the ice are found at the top of glaciers.
If anyone does believe we are facing serious trhreats from the amount of Co2 we have produced please sign this petition people worldwide are also protesting in support of it.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/100_clean_final/?slideshow
I can sincerely say this is the most important petition we've ever done.
Sorry for the language, but one top scientist just warned that we are all "f*cked" if global warming releases gigantic amounts of methane gas from the arctic tundra. The UN knows this is one of several catastrophic climate threats we're facing, and is bringing world leaders to New York for a major summit on this global emergency.
Hundreds of thousands of us will take to the streets for the People’s Climate March just before the summit. Let’s make sure that on that day we deliver the largest Avaaz petition ever, for the only solution: mobilize the world to shift to 100% clean energy. Click on the right to sign and tell everyone.