Yesterday I brought you an LA Times article about ice storms being caused by a warming earth. Today we have
Why historic snow doesn’t mean climate change is a myth
It’s been snowing in the Eastern United States like nobody’s business. Crazy, wild cold and snowstorms.
Predicting the weather might be hard, but predicting that extreme cold weather will produce a lot of hot air from climate deniers is easy. In fact, the number of myths floating around about climate change is pretty extensive, and I thought it might be helpful to address them, one by one, over the course of the year.
There’s an elegant, if not complete, counterargument that comes via MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Tracker, one of my favorite daily blog reads. I’ll let you read it all here, but to boil it down to its chilly essence:
Within the global context, these snowstorms mean nothing. Even if the entire United States, including Alaska, were blanketed with unseasonable cold (not here in California, that’s for sure) or snow (could we just get a few raindrops, maybe?), that would amount to about 2% of the planet’s surface.
A couple points. First, the Warmists seem to be really ramping up their talking points about cold and snow and ice being caused by warmth from Mankind’s activities, particularly fossil fuels.
Second, when a tiny portion of the planet’s surface is seeing things like tornadoes (which have been really low), wildfires (again, really low), drought, flood, or other weather (Sandy didn’t even affect that 2%, yet the storm was supposedly PROOF of AGW, er, climate change) we are told that it is proof of Hotcoldwetdry, even when the rest of the world is average or below average.
Yet, these same Warmists refuse to give up their own Big Carbon lifestyles, which should tell you everything you need to know about their beliefs.
Teachy typed:
“First, the Warmists seem to be really ramping up their talking points about cold and snow and ice being caused by warmth from Mankind’s activities, particularly fossil fuels.”
They’ve learned from the Coolists and the Carbonuts and are fighting ice with fire! You maintain the Earth can’t be warming because it snowed in North Carolina in February (even though you know better – whom are you trying to reach, by the way?). Climate realists push back and blame the unusual weather patterns on global warming! You’re both overreaching but the you’re more wrong than they are.
The Earth is warming from our burning fossil fuels and adding CO2 to the atmosphere more rapidly than it is removed. It may be difficult for a Coolist to understand (or to want to understand), but a cold day in a small town in February does not signal that the whole great big ol’ Earth is cold. The data indicate that the Earth is warming even if there’s cold in them thar hills.
Coolists will dismiss this as egghead blah-blah-blah, but the heat energy added to the overall system (the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land and ice sheets) can cause the redistribution (Obama!!!!) of global winds, currents and air masses. So it’s warmer in Alaska and the Arctic these days and cooler in St. Louis.
Jeff,
Are you going to answer my questions? Otherwise, your comments are worthless.
J-Also still waiting for proof that Co2 is causing warming. And how much warming. Thanks.
dave typed:
“Are you going to answer my questions? Otherwise, your comments are worthless.”
Please explain why you think that is true.
Next, pick your favorite question and re-ask it, but please supply some background as to why you think it is a critical question.
Please pick only one question to discuss at a time, if you would be so kind.
Thanks.
j,
Keep waiting. Unlike mathematics, there are no proofs in science. We still haven’t proved gravity or evolution. We don’t even know why things fall to Earth! Why don’t we keep going when we jump?
The most likely reason for the current rapid warming of Earth is the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. You know all the reasons – they’ve been discussed repeatedly – Joseph Fourier, Svante Arrhenius etc – it’s been understood for almost two centuries. If you read the charming essays linked below you may begin to understand why scientists appear at times to be so dismissive of skeptics arguments. It would be more surprising if the Earth were not warming.
see: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
What’s the proof that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer? People got lung cancer before there were cigarettes, therefore cigarettes can’t be the cause of the rise in lung cancer now! Why can’t the same natural processes that caused lung cancer thousands of years ago be causing the increase in lung cancer now? And in fact, according to the NCI, there’s been a 20 year pause in the rate of increase in lung cancer deaths in the US. If you can’t explain the pause, you can’t explain the cause! Based on the cigarette-cancer hoax (driven by greedy scientists), the liberal fascist government has ruined the economy of tobacco companies and tobacco growers. All without proof.