GENEVA—Icy conditions that have claimed dozens of lives across Europe since November are partly due to La Nina, an upsurge of cooler water to the Pacific Ocean surface, the UN’s weather agency said Friday.
“The cold snap currently being experienced can be partly attributed to the La Nina phenomenon, which is a cooling of the sea surface in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific,” the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.
“However, it should be recalled that weather conditions are the result of extremely complex interactions, and, therefore, one particular event cannot be attributed to one specific cause,” the statement added.
Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the Geneva-based agency, urged people not to believe that the extreme cold weather Europe was experiencing was in any way evidence against global warming.
“The harsh winter in Europe should not hide the fact that the study of global temperatures registered since 1850, which is when reliable meteorological records began, undoubtedly shows global warming,” the WMO said.
The UN agency pointed out that although 2008 was cooler than 2007, it was still the 10th warmest on record.
Extreme conditions in recent days have seen: heavy snow in Marseille in southern France for the first time in 20 years; Madrid’s airport forced to close due to rare snowfalls; and more than 80 deaths from the cold in Poland alone.
source: Agence France-Presse
Comments
View as Flat
georgia Posted 7:49 am
10 Jan 2009
The only evidence of a connection lies within climate models, which have to make so many assumptions to even run, that they are unquestionalbly unreliable and useless in predicting future climate perameters.
Also, you have to wonder why none, and I mean none, of the handful of scientists that are ringing the alarm bells (plus Al Gore) always refuse to debate any of the so-called global warming skeptics? Are they fraidy scared to walk the walk?
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Bob Wallace Posted 1:41 pm
10 Jan 2009
And didn't make sure you actually swallowed your meds first?
Sloppy, sloppy attendants working there....
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georgia Posted 8:34 am
11 Jan 2009
Historically, the earth doesn't stay warm for very long (10 -12 thousand years) before gonig into a 100k long cond freeze.
If you did a bit of research outside of Real Climate, you might seek out some studies that have measured CO2's absorption spectrum. It's small range is also absorbed by water vapor. With it being both a week and a trace gas, it has so little influence on T that we couldn't detect the change if we doubled or trippled co2 concentrations from their current levels, what ever they are (they are nt the same everywhere and have been measured at levels above 400ppm since measurements began in the early 1800s.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:47 am
11 Jan 2009
*The Stratosphere (Above the Troposphere)
*The rest is too thin to matter
Sunlight turns into infrared radiation as it bounces off, and leaves the earth.
Infrared radiation causes heat.
The troposphere has been getting warmer, while the stratosphere has been getting colder.
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing2.png
As if "something in the troposphere" is increasingly blocking infrared radiation from reaching the stratosphere.
The greenhouse layer is in the troposphere.
Now if it were the sun increasing it's output, don't you think that the stratosphere would be receiving more infrared radiation, not less?
http://greyfalcon.net/forcing.png
http://greyfalcon.net/solar.png
___
As for your 10,000 year cycle thing.
That's changes in earth's orbit relative to the sun.
http://greyfalcon.net/milankovitch
However that's way too slow to explain the last few centuries, much less the last 4 decades.
_____
As for proxy records, take your pick.
http://greyfalcon.net/moberg2005.png
(Besides of course, Baliunas 2006 which was demolished in open review, or Craig Loehle 2007 which wasn't even published in a Physical Science Journal)
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catman Posted 9:52 am
11 Jan 2009
You are debating faith-based science. You can't win. Keep your facts and studies to yourself because they can't sway Georgia from his/her Boortz and Limbaugh talking points. Only the collapse of the Greenland and Antarctica Ice sheets can shake this person's faith.
Faith can move mountains. Right? But can it keep the Earth's environment within safe (for our present day lifeforms) tolerances?
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georgia Posted 11:49 am
11 Jan 2009
Fine, there are gases in the atmosphere that get excited (if you will) when they receive/intercept specific wavelengths of energy. O2 traps heat as well as CO2 and is clearly much more prevelent. CO2 intercepts a very small range of wavelengths, thus most of the energy passes by.
Water vapor absorbs a significantly broader range of wavelengths including the range that CO2 absorbs. The AGW theory states that the increase in CO2 will cause more evaporation and thus put more water vapor into the air. The water vapor then is responsible for most of the warming. By their own definition, it would be much more effective to simply reduce our open use of water to reduce evaporation. All we would have to do is stop watering our lawns and golf courses, stop transporting water via open ducts, and stop irrigating our crops. Why go after H2O indirecttly when we could go at it directly.
What the greenhouse effect fails to account for is how the earth sheds heat. Heat is moved poleward and upward primarily by convection (Hadley cells, jet streams, storm fronts, etc).
The sun not only heats the earth, but uneven heating leads to pressure gradient forces which drive wind and weather patterns. IT DOES NOT COOL VIA RADIATION!
:)
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GreyFlcn Posted 12:00 pm
11 Jan 2009
Uhg...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared#Heat
The AGW theory states that the increase in CO2 will cause more evaporation and thus put more water vapor into the air.
Perhaps, but that's not crucially important to the troposphere. Since there's already an excess of water vapor below the troposphere.
The amount of water vapor in the troposphere is dependent on other temperature forcings present within the troposphere.
In effect tropospheric water vapor can't "Cause" warming. All it can do is amplify other warming factors.
http://www.agu.org/journals/scripts/highlight.php?pid=200 ...
http://greyfalcon.net/watervapor.png
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georgia Posted 12:17 pm
11 Jan 2009
So if CO2 causes additional warming at the surface which in turn puts more water vapor into the air which amplifies the warming, then my point is proven. All we need to do is reduce evaporation to account for the increase in evaporation caused by CO2. Mystery solved.
Also, infrared does not cause heat... it is heat/energy.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:17 pm
11 Jan 2009
The amount of water vapor in the greenhouse layer is regulated by the temperature there.
Less heat, means more condensation, then it turns to water and falls straight out.
More heat, means less condensation, which means an increasing holding capacity for water vapor in the greenhouse layer.
_
That said, there's already an EXCESS amount of water vapor below the greenhouse layer. So adding more excess wouldn't really make much difference.
What's more, the water vapor cycles such that it only spends a few days in the greenhouse layer so wouldn't really much matter anyways.
"Long Lived Green House Gases" on the other hand spend decades to centuries in the atmosphere. Which gives them plenty of time to accumulate.
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georgia Posted 11:07 am
12 Jan 2009
I'm not sure I can agree with your assumption that CO2 resides in the atmosphere for centuries. I'm sure some molecules do, but on average, it would have to be far less. Otherwise, the CO2 concentration would have to be much higher right now.
I really think you should read the following analyses.
http://www.ruralsoft.com.au/ClimateChange.doc
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
As I mentioned in one of our earlier exchanges, I try to read everything I can and try to draw my own conclusions. I guess I don't put my trust in others.
Enjoy.
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Bob Wallace Posted 12:27 pm
12 Jan 2009
You don't understand the problem
You don't even understand who has been trying to explain things to you in the last few posts.
Here's a hint. It's not Bob....
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georgia Posted 1:16 pm
12 Jan 2009
However, I bet you won't read either of the links I posted.
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:30 pm
12 Jan 2009
You come across as a "skeptic" in the sense of someone who wants global climate change to not be happening, and if it is, to not be due to human behavior and then looks for any speck of information that might support your wishes.
The first link, a 1998 paper that obviously has not influenced the vast majority of climate scientists, well, mistakes are made in science all the time. Search the literature and you may find a paper or two that seems to support your wishes. That doesn't make the speck valid. (Nor make your wishes valid.) Every scientist makes the occasional mistake and every scientist forms a bad summary of the evidence if they work in their field long enough.
(I wasn't able to get your second link to open.)
Look for a body of evidence, multiple papers that have common findings. That's where scientific consensus comes from - a lot of supporting data from diverse sources.
Taking a single study and trying to disprove the greater body of evidence will almost always lead to failure. You just can't take things out of context.
Doing so is a lot like the guy who stood up in church and read from the Bible "And Judas went out an hanged himself" and then read "Go forth and do so likewise".
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georgia Posted 9:13 am
13 Jan 2009
I got started in my search for information, primarily because for work, We (my department) are very concerned about impacts to tidal wetlands. Our state has lost thousands of acres to filling activities prior to 1970. Thus, potential impacts from accelerating sea level rise are important to understand and try to mitigate if possible.
Like you, I had no reason to be suspect of the greenhouse effect theory and how CO2 was thought to be a primary contributor to the warming that had been going on since the mid 1970s.
However, the more I searched for data about sea level rise, the more I came to understand that the process had been political, not scientific. The rules of scientific study and inquiry were cast aside. Principles of forcasting were overlooked.
In science, someone with a new theory welcomes all challengers to prove them wrong. This is how science is advanced. Ask Einstein. His theories were put to the test.
However, when I see executive summaries that include recommendations/projects that are not supported by the underlying report, yes I get skeptical. When executive summaries are released months before the report so that the media and the politicians can run with the so-called results ahead of the data, yes, I become skeptical.
When the IPCC report states that impact of clouds are one of the most significant factors in affecting temperature, yet they knwo not whether they represent a net positive or a negative feedback, and then they go on to say that with high confidence humans are causing the warming, yes, I get skeptical.
When pictures of polar bears floating on summer ice are used to play on peoples emotions, facts be dambed, yes I get skeptical.
When politicians spend large amounts of tax-payer money on very dumb ideas like ethanol and wind turbines based on an unproven theory, yes I get skeptical.
When scientists and ex-politicians make extreme and unsupportable statements like "if the greenland glaciers melt," sea level could rise 7 meters, yes I get skeptical.
An finally, we people like me enter the debade and are attacked personally because we see the issue differently and process the data diferently, yes I become skeptical. I wonder, why is your side afraid of having a debate but at the same time insisting that the debate is over.
So I sit here still trying to find any credible evidence that anthropogenic CO2 increases global T outside of computer model predicitons and I find nothing but maipulated data, name calling, claims of consensus when no such consensus exists, and powerful people getting very rich off carbon credits and the like. So yes I'm very skeptical.
I wondering Bob, why aren't you!
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:57 am
13 Jan 2009
It's why you aren't skeptical about the other side at all.
It doesn't matter how suspect the source seems to be, as long as it agrees with your point of view, it's automatically assumed to be legitimate.
Both those last two links you gave, for instance, aren't peer reviewed science.
RuralSoft is a consulting firm.
And as for Tom V. Segalstad, he has the credentials to write peer reviewed physical science papers. So why isn't this published as one? (What's more, the known evidence about climate change has changed quite a lot in the last decade since 1998)
When you assume that Pseudo-Science, and Peer-Reviewed Science are equal, then you aren't truly being "skeptical". You're just being Ideological.
And that can sometimes be rather scary.
http://greyfalcon.net/reality
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GreyFlcn Posted 10:58 am
13 Jan 2009
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georgia Posted 3:11 am
16 Jan 2009
So please, send me solid science that proves that anthropogenic GHGs cause global T to rise. I'll read it immediately. Can you point to something besides GCMs?
What I'm saying is that I started this search with no horse in the race and I followed the data. What I consistently found was that websites and organizations (like the Union of Concerned Scientists) that support AGW presented mostly emotional arguments or assumed that CO2 drives T and thus never tried to prove to the reader the scientific connection b/t CO2 and T. Conversely, those that questioned AGW took a decidely strict scientific approach and left emotion largely out of the question. Where is an objective mind supossed to lean. I'm trained in science. I don't buy into emotional arguments.
Theories need to be proved, especially when massive public investments and regulations are being proposed. They ought not be assumed and adopted just becuase they are posited. But that seems to be what advocates want.
Then when you look at the solutions that AGW folks suggest, they can't possibly have any significant impact on CO2. They reject nuclear, the only viable carbon free source of energy capable of impacting our overall carbon footprint in any significant way. You have to wonder if they belive in what they are selling, or are they mostly interested in making lots of money and becomeing very powerful from controlling the issue.
On top of that, when those same folks use pictures of polar bears floating on ice (like they naturally do) and one report of 4 bears drowning in a storm to drive public opinion, I have wonder why they don't rely on their scientific evidence to inform the public.
So I have to wonder why those that are so convinced that CO2 is such a problem are so unwilling to make the scientific argument based on solid scientific investigation. It is clear that the IPCC process is political. It ignores it's own reports and comes to unsuportable conclusions. By the way, the latest report uses a lot of studies you would deem outdated (pre-2000) These conclusions are then held out as being above criticism based on a scientific consensus that does not exist.
So what is an objective mind to make of all this?
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