Yes, there’s been a great deal of snow in the eastern United States this year. That’s led some people to wonder how it’s possible that global warming is real when there are record-breaking snowstorms. People who live just to the south of the Great Lakes and pay close attention to weather patterns there don’t see any inconsistency, though. They know that warmer water during wintertime results in more snow, because there’s more evaporation into the air. A colder winter will also result in smaller areas of water that remain open.
We don’t have to rely upon anecdotal stories of lake effect snows to refute the snowstorm=global cooling argument, however. We can merely look at the trend in the actual global temperature, in the bigger world beyond the borders of the east coast megalopolis. Globally, this has been the hottest winter on record (sorry to the Southern Hemisphere for this north-centric use of the term “winter” – the data includes the Southern Hemisphere’s temperatures too).
Still looking for some kind of specific confirmation of climate change? Okay, look up to Hudson Bay. Last week, I noted new research showing a dramatic retreat of permafrost around the southernmost protrusion of Hudson Bay (James Bay). This week, results of another data survey show another climate shift nearby.
Grizzly bears are headed north. About 400 miles to the Northeast of James Bay is Wapusk National Park, an area that lies on the western shore of Hudson Bay. Historically, this part of Manitoba has been polar bear territory. Records going back hundreds of years show that not one single grizzly was ever seen there until 14 years ago. Since then, sightings of grizzly bears in the park have been increasing in frequency.
Southern species moving north (and vice versa in the Southern Hemisphere) is exactly the sort of thing that’s been predicted by climatologists and ecologists, and the grizzly bears of northern Manitoba are just one more example of a shift that’s been documented in plants, fish, bugs and birds.
Can people who insist global warming is a hoax come up with even one example of a polar animal or plant shifting its range toward the equator?
Natural, cyclical, global warming is real, has happened for millions of years…man made global warming is a hoax.
No evidence necessary for your statement, Tomas? Is the grizzly bear study a hoax? Evidence, please, that the grizzly survey was a fraud.
No, it would be real. Sure they are going to retreat. As they have done in the past…due to natural events of global warming…it’s normal.
Tomas,
It is true what you say that natural climatic cycles have been going on for millions (even billions) of years. There have been times in the past when the global climate was significantly warmer than it is now. However, what you and all of the “man-made climate change” deniers fail to understand is that it is not the MAGNITUDE of the changes that the Earth is currently experiencing that is alarming scientists around the world, but it is the RATE at which these changes are happening that leads us to conclude than human factors are causing the changes. The magnitude of the changes that have been observed in the past century (sea level rise, polar ice retreat, atmospheric CO2 increase, species distribution shifts, global temperature rise, weather pattern shifts, etc.) normally occur over the course of thousands to millions of years. By the way, these observations are documented facts, and not just inferred conclusions or speculation.
This article gives a very good challenge; species moving toward the equator. I’ve looked. http://www.issg.org/ At over 100 species and I can’t find clear evidence that they are. But the proper question is not ‘moving toward the equator’ rather moving from historically cooler climate zones to warmer climate zones. It seems there are great variations in adaptability between kingdom, phylum, order, family; I’m not a biologist. There is movement both directions, but always with human intervention either diliberate or by accident. However, usually warmer to cooler and not cooler to warmer. Most recorded species invasions seem to be focused on pest species and habitat or commercial interest destruction; none of them say, no problem, look somewhere else….
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7026317.ece
Rate of climate change is debateable. Has the earth hit a local max in climate change plot?
Phil Jones has admitted that even he has known that there has been no appreciable warming since 1995. Any bright math student can look at the temp data since around 1880, move it to excel and plot a non-zero intercept, linear regression and see an increase. But from 1995, there is not sufficient data, in my opinion to show that the earth is cooling. I’m more inclined to look at the solar cycles for correlation with past cycles and the greenland ice core temp records. Google it and look for the data yourself. If the long duration minimum of the SC23/24 transition, and the coming SC24 are like cycles 10-15, then we will enter a period of non-AP-global cooling.
The earth has three energy sources or inputs. Heat from within, solar irradiation and cosmic irradiation. That’s it. Atmospheric and oceanic currents add no energy, they just dance around based on the energy they are given.
Bears moving north means something has changed in their current habitat, their numbers are increasing(causing overcrowding pressure) or new habitat is opening up; or some mixture of all those. I confess I haven’t read the study. Melting permafrost sure lends credibility to the habitat change. Has anyone looked at maps of the two to overlay them?
NO, no, no – if Tomas says it’s a hoax, then by all means, it’s a hoax. i mean the bears could be faking it, and all the so-called “scientists” are basically LYING to keep up Al Gore’s image, and and Glen Beck doesn’t believe it and neither does Exxon-Mobil, so, you know, it’s all made up! Oh and permafrost, i mean, who needs that? And don’t forget there’s a couple of books out there by this Lomborg academic who shows through copious references to other stuff that it’s all a fake, so there you go.
Here’s a nugget for you: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522005
There’s more than “just a few crazies” out here with the Hoax angle if this has to happen: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7309204/UKIP-would-ban-Al-Gore-film-in-schools.html
Yes, there are a lot of crazies out there, especially in a right wing Tory newspaper such as the Telegraph.
Hottest winter on record: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=significant-extremes&year=2009&month=13&ext=gif
too funny. yeah its been hot..NOT…I am currently in The Bahamas, freezing my ass off. Most of the northern hemisphere has been blanketed with snow storms since December, in many places where they dont even normally get snow, from Florida to Texas to……
I saw the way your numbers were calculated. They take the 4 hottest temperatures from November to March and average them, and since those temps were higher in Nov 2009 compared to Nov. 2008, the nutters concluded that 2010 winter ‘was’ the warmest. this is a joke. November is not even in winter!
It just shows how these environutter collect data and make conclusions from it, its completely unscientific.
Stefan, anecdotal observations do not contradict long range trends in geographically widespread, consistent data collection. As for snow, the level of snowfall increases with warmer winters, so long as land temperatures remain at or below freezing, because there’s more evaporation of water into the air.
Right, let’s all just keep doing what we’re doing and watch as the results make life as we know it unsustainable. Humanity is about the most ignorant species going – can’t learn by our mistakes, in fact we can’t even admit to making mistakes now – and we’ll go extinct, with myriad other species, due to our own inaction (cleaning up our act) and stupidity (continuing with our unsustainable polluting ways).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35243707/ns/us_news-environment/
http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/25/max-boykoff-media-balance-deniers-contrarian-climate-change/#more-19987
http://www.truthout.org/topstories/120409sg05
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
Yea…scold the next volcano that goes off…they have a tendency to spew the same amount of CO2 gases as of all the industrial pollution set out since 1900 in one eruption…damn….
Are you saying that the average volcanic eruption releases as much CO2 as all the industrial pollution since 1900? What is your source for this claim?
The US Geological Survey released that report back when Mt Pinatubo went off in the Phillipines. I was stationed in the US SW when it happened and we were dispatched to assist in the evacuation. The report came out months later. I recall it well because it was quite a show.
is there any way man can decrease the problems that would be caused by the next volcano eruption?
if we could, should we?
if we can decrease our output of CO2,(not in an effort to thwart global warming, let’s just say, to help clean up the air we breathe) should we?
It’s not just volcanos, methane gas bubbles have been seen coming up from the oceans off the coast of Burmuda and areas SE of Hawaii…what about them? They out do the fart out put of cows…
REFERENCE???
Methane bubble have been coming up for millions of years. Current observations are nothing new.
Exactly my point. They scream that farting cows create deadly greenhouse gases and these methane bubbles have been going on for millions of years.
CO2 is not a pollutant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact, it causes plant and crop yields to go up. This is fact. You exhale Co2 every time you breathe. Dead leaves emit co2. The oceans emit co2. volcanoes emit co2. co2 is not a pollutant, it is a naturally occuring trace gas that represents less than 4/10th of one percent of all greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
Stefan, arsenic is naturally occurring. Does that make it NOT a pollutant when industrial activities place it in our drinking water?
Volcanoes emit plenty of gases that are deadly poisons. There have been instances of volcanoes releasing clouds of poisonous gas so deadly that they killed entire villages.
Plants thrive on sunlight, but if you stay outside in the sun all day, your skin will burn and flake off, and you’ll be more likely to get deadly cancer.
When it comes to CO2, the question is not whether it exists at all, but rather how much of it is in the air.
It’s understandable, really, given our media:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/