{"id":147,"date":"2012-10-30T17:47:17","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T22:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/?p=147"},"modified":"2012-10-30T17:47:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T22:47:17","slug":"gw1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/2012\/10\/30\/gw1\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Warming – A Primer Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, a comment on hurricane Sandy.\u00a0 The only reason that Sandy was a disaster is that the area that it hit wasn’t prepared.\u00a0 If Sandy had hit SE Texas or Florida, no one, including the people it hit would even have noticed.\u00a0 I’m not saying this to be mean, but New York and New Jersey are not prepared for any type of hurricane.<\/p>\n

The majority of people in the area that I’m from don’t even think about evacuating until a hurricane is a category 3 or higher.\u00a0 We’re used to being without electricity for long periods of time (4-6 weeks during Rita and Ike).\u00a0 We have supplies stored no matter what’s going on.\u00a0 I’m sure that some people were prepared for Sandy, but it’s not a mindset that the NE US has.<\/p>\n

I’m afraid that they are going to have to learn that mindset and sooner rather than later.\u00a0 The evidence points to global warming increasing the frequency, size, and later season hurricanes.<\/p>\n

I have posted some on global warming, but I realized that we hadn\u2019t discussed the evidence that global warming is occurring.\u00a0 What is it, how do we know, and what does it mean?<\/p>\n

This is going to get kind of technical, but I\u2019ll do my best to explain all the details.<\/p>\n

Climate<\/a> vs. Weather<\/a><\/p>\n

First, and probably most important, let\u2019s deal with this common complaint.<\/p>\n

The global temperature can\u2019t be higher because it snowed in Houston last year and it hasn\u2019t done that for decades.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a huge difference between local weather and climate.\u00a0 Local weather can vary hugely over short time spans.\u00a0 Even a few days can make the difference (as experienced by myself) between 80\u00b0F and snowing.\u00a0 In Texas, it\u2019s common to have 100% humidity and record breaking temperatures one day and near lows a few days later.\u00a0 That\u2019s local weather.<\/p>\n

Climate is the general tendency for weather over a long period of time.\u00a0 Southeast Texas tends to be humid and hot.\u00a0 This should be obvious to anyone who\u2019s lived there for more than a few months.\u00a0 However, there are periods of snow and ice, and record breaking rainfall and record breaking heat.\u00a0 But on average, it will be hot and pretty humid.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example, climate could be the average amount of rainfall per year.\u00a0 Weather is getting half of your yearly rainfall in one thunderstorm.<\/p>\n

One of the predictions of global warming is an increase in the variability of local weather.<\/p>\n

Warming is expected to be strongest in the Arctic and would be associated with continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice. Other likely effects of the warming include more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events including heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall events, species extinctions due to shifting temperature regimes, and changes in agricultural yields. Warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe, though the nature of these regional changes is uncertain.\u00a0 4th IPCC Report<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, global warming predicts that snow could fall in SE Texas.\u00a0 It\u2019s because of the massive changes the heat is causing on the Earth.\u00a0 While we\u2019re talking about heat and temperature\u2026<\/p>\n

Warmest Years On Record<\/a><\/p>\n

The simplest way to look at this is to examine the actual global temperature, all over the world, and average those temperatures together and get a \u2018global average temperature\u2019.\u00a0 While this method does a good job of highlighting the issue, it isn\u2019t quite as useful scientifically because some weather stations stop, some start, there are conversions of data, etc.<\/p>\n

But the results are still pretty good for the average person and very telling.<\/p>\n

2012 was the warmest year ever on record.\u00a0 That bumps 2005 and 2010 to the second and third warmest years since 1880. Over the last 130 years, nine of the ten hottest years on record have occurred in the last 10 years.\u00a0 The years 2000-2009 is the warmest decade on record and with 2012 being hottest and 2011 in the top 11, the 2010-2019 decade may be hotter still.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

GISS_annual_temperature_anomalies<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where it gets pretty ugly.\u00a0 Since 1970, the average increase of the global temperature has been 0.36\u00b0F per decade.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t\u00a0 sound like too much, except it\u2019s been over 40 years since 1970 and the global temperature has risen 1.4\u00b0F and the rate seems to be increasing.<\/p>\n

That sounds like global warming to me.<\/p>\n

What about longer periods of time?<\/h3>\n

Well, we can look back in time at the temperatures by using several methods<\/a>.\u00a0 We have to use proxies, since there really weren\u2019t global temperature records made before 1880.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, there are a variety of methods we can use.\u00a0 This is important because we compare the different methods to see if we get the same results.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t get the same result then we know something is wrong somewhere.<\/p>\n

However, we do get very close results with these different methods.\u00a0 One methods we can use to get that data is dencroclimatology<\/a>, in which we use tree rings to infer higher temperatures.\u00a0 The isotope composition<\/a> of snow (packed snow from the antarctic and artic), corals<\/a>, and stalactites<\/a> can be used as well.\u00a0 We can also observe the change in treeline, deserts, etc.<\/p>\n

Now, as a single test, these pieces of data wouldn\u2019t be very useful, but as a group, they all point the same way.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a reconstruction of the temperature changes for the last 1000 years based on this kind of data.\u00a0 Remember, they all agree with each other, which is a very powerful indicator that we are correct.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison<\/p>\n

Notice how each method (each colored line) gives a different result, but the trends agree with each other.\u00a0 Further, look at how they all cluster closer together in the present.\u00a0 Much like evolution, it’s not one data point over 100 years, it’s millions of data points over thousands of years.\u00a0 Each point must be refuted if the denialists are to discredit global warming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, a comment on hurricane Sandy.\u00a0 The only reason that Sandy was a disaster is that the area that it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,9,6],"tags":[99,98,96,97],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology","category-evironment","category-science","tag-environment","tag-evidence","tag-global-wamring","tag-sandy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}