Whither Global Warming?
Well I know that this is going to spark some debate here. Aaron has been chomping at the bit to take me on about Global Warming, so let’s get the party started. I’m going to start off with a chart.
This comes from the U.K.’s Climate Research Unit (CRU). This is the latest global average temperature data. A lot has been made of the tremendous peak in 1998 and then the noticeable drop in average temperature. Also worth noting is the increase towards the 1940’s then leveling off, then the increase kicking like gangbusters in the 1980’s.
So I caught a little debate over on some other science blogs about this.
What this comes down to for me (among many things) is that yes, weather is variable and the "climate" year to year looks rather erratic, but you can’t look at just one year or a couple years you have to look at decades to see patterns.
The Earth’s climate tries to achieve a balance or equilibrium point. Unfortunately the Earth also has bad aim. Okay 1998 was hot … correction time, cool ‘er down boys … whoops too far … Now this year-to-year varibility is normal and, thanks to chaos theory, you look at climate data you see similar patterns at many time scales from the day to the century. Lots of spikes, lots of wiggles.
What makes Global Warming problematic for us the changes in climate are going effect our daily lives significantly. Heck you don’t even have to believe in Global Warming to see that! Increasingly stronger hurricane seasons, less polar ice, intense weather events, flooding and drought. These aren’t random occurrences, these are the results of the Earth getting warmer.
Well now I’ve opened the door to this debate on this blog. I’m not going to let it take over, as much as I love to discuss Global Warming, it does get old after a while.
Regardless here are some great links to read (all from the U.K., the BBC has some great stuff) …
- Newsvine
- BBC Guide to Climate Change
- BBC Global Warming section
- Stark Warning over Climate Change (BBC)
April 18th, 2006 at 8:41 am
I’m going to leave the first commment here to set some ground rules.
First, no personal attacks or bullying. Period. I will delete your comment if you cross the line. I might warn you, if it is really over the line … nope just toast. This is a forum for discourse not discord.
Second, if you’re going to make a claim, cite your data too. If you can’t find it online … a full journal citation will do, but … since we’re on an online medium (and I might not be able to get to UVic to get the article), online is preferred.
Pulling in friends and experts is welcomed. Believe me I plan on lining up my profs from school if I get stumped.
I think that should do it.
If the comments start getting too long (I can only hope!) I might make a post of the comments and start all over again.
April 18th, 2006 at 10:44 am
The environment writer for the San Francisco Chronicle posted up a series of article related to this topic that I found interesting- in large part because it offers tangible evidence around the globe of environments being affected by rising temperatures.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/15/MNG3FGMHML1.DTL
April 18th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Great article Deb. These are exactly the kinds of problems already being seen. Tangible things. Talk about a year-round ice-free corridor in the Arctic is just plain scary!
April 18th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Oh, God, citations?
First, while I don’t believe in Global Warming, I do believe in “global warming”. 1 being the cause, irrespective of science, irrespective of how grossly off the predictions were (in the 60s, they predicted a gross shift of 6-8 degrees by now, for example), etc.
Any closed-mindedness guts me.
However, I do believe in the generic principle that the earth is in the midst of a change. Personally, I don’t think looking at decades is enough, because weather patterns (besides localized ones) rarely go full circle in just decades.
That global weather patterns often take centures, or even millenia, to play out is obvious.
So, sure, the earth is entering a more chaotic weather period. Yes, the temperature is rising (though the actual amount of the increase has been the subject of debate since this all started, largely because measuring it consistently (and without urban heat effects coming into play) has been difficult).
However, are we seeing cause and effect? It’s way, way too early to know. And since there’s no way for us to test things in a controlled environment, it’s impossible to say with scientific certainty.
On the flip side, I also believe in being environmentally responsible. Not because of hype or activism, but because it’s an issue of responsibility. While I believe in the planet’s ability to self-heal far more effectively than we give the old girl credit for, I also believe that at certain times it violently self-corrects … And, personally, I’d rather not contribute to that self-correcting.
Sorry, no science here, just figured I’d lay my opinion out all at once so I could get torn to shreds by real science-type-folk ;-)
April 18th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Jeremy, your pragmatism is fantastic. You don’t have to buy into Global Warming (note caps) to realize that something not good is happening. GW aside we are polluting the atmosphere and relying too heavily on fossil fuels. The Arctic ocean isn’t freezing up as much as it should for as long as it should. These aren’t good things.
On climate change … I will find the data, but when I was at UMaine we learned from Greenland ice cores that climate change (like switching between a mini-glacial to mini-interglacial period) could occur on the decadal time scale.
Perhaps the arguement of “is global warming true” is moot. Perhaps we should really focus on the real climate problems we are observing and what we have done as a species to cause them. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is at levels not seen in millions of years. This isn’t a good thing.
We’re using tremendous amounts of water and the problems are beginning to become apparent in the U.S. and Canada (think about that next time you visit Las Vegas … which is in the dessert!).
Then there is fuel. Oil, gas, etc just won’t last forever. And continuing to use them causes a whole host of problems.
So, Jeremy … if that’s your stance of non-belief … I can live with that.