Impact of Climate Change Is Hitting Home, U.S. Report Finds

[SamH]

However it did reach a very deep low 2006 thru 2009, and quite frankly you would have expected the climate to have returned to the 1960s levels, if ACC were not a factor, but it did not:

Except for the fact that the oceans absorb huge amounts of this heat and it takes more than a couple years of low solar flare activity (what happened to the 15 years you posted about earlier?) to actually change global temps. Given the massive amount of solar activity the earth is being hit with it is disturbing that we haven’t seen an increase in global temps for the past 16 years.

 

[lynnvinc]

It is my understanding that the persistent high pressure over the midwest and the resulting drought is not simply the El Nino/La Nina cycle in the Pacific, but a confluence of cool-down in the eastern Pacific and warming in the west Atlantic temperature cycle. It will be interesting to see whether this time it will be worse, better or the same as those in the 1950s and the 1930s. But it is a cyclic phenomenon.

Not all scientists agree with GW and among those who do, not all are persuaded that it’s MMGW. We have seen those citations pro and con on here endlessly.

Who, exactly, are the “wasteful hogs”? Who, exactly, do you want to deprive of heat for their homes? What, precisely, do you want to do about transportation of goods?

Again, there are natural weather and climate cycles. Weather is not climate, but climate is the sum total & average of weather. Here is an explanation of the ENSO and Northern Atlantic oscillation, which pretty much matches what you are saying – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o%E2%80%93Southern_Oscillation & en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_oscillation . And here is the Arctic Oscillation, which when negative brings arctic blasts down south, while bringing warmer weather to the Arctic - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_oscillation . And there are emerging studies which indicate global warming is driving more frequent/intense negative arctic oscillations. Which is a real downer for me, since I had been thinking the one positive thing about GW is that we’d be getting less killing freezes in my area, and now they are saying it will be more…at least until it gets really hot over the decades and centuries and millennia to which we are committing our AGW.

RE climate scientiests, pretty much all working climate scientists agree AGW is real, but a very few (maybe 1 or 2%) say it won’t cause serious problems, but they do not dispute that it is happening. It is the politicos and their hired hack fakexperts (with scientific or engineering background in non-climate areas) who are saying AGW is not happening. Now even within legimate climate science, they cannot say with 100% certainty AGW is happening – there is alway a 1 to 5% chance something may not be happening. We can always hope in that 1-5% that AGW is not happening or will not being so harmful, but we should “expect the worse,” and do what we can in a reasonable way to reduce our contributions. Prudence calls us to do that – along with JPII and BXVI calling us to do that.

We (most of us) are obviously living very high on the hog in terms of inefficiencies, lack of conservation, refusal to go onto alt energy even when it costs about the same or saves money, and refusal to recycle and do various things that do not cost money, but may take a tiny bit of thought or a few extra seconds of our time, maybe amounting to 3 or 5 extra minutes a day…many times during which we can be saying prayers or watching the news.

Energy and resource experts say we can reduce our energy and resource use by over 75% here in the U.S. without lowering our living standards or productivity, actually strengthening our economy. Just last night ABC News had a segment about how much food families waste in America with about 25% of the food budget being thrown away (see abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=18337611&sid=7623874&cid=7623874 ) – and these types of waste were not even included in these energy and resource studies.

Even though my husband and I have reduced our GHG emissions (and concomitant harmful polllution) by over 60% below our 1990 level, we still have more to do. A lot more. So I am also living high on the profligacy hog, and need to continue my journey of helping to reduce my harm to people and God’s creation.

 

[Ridgerunner]

RE climate scientiests, pretty much all working climate scientists agree AGW is real, but a very few (maybe 1 or 2%) say it won’t cause serious problems, but they do not dispute that it is happening. It is the politicos and their hired hack fakexperts (with scientific or engineering background in non-climate areas) who are saying AGW is not happening. Now even within legimate climate science, they cannot say with 100% certainty AGW is happening – there is alway a 1 to 5% chance something may not be happening. We can always hope in that 1-5% that AGW is not happening or will not being so harmful, but we should “expect the worse,” and do what we can in a reasonable way to reduce our contributions. Prudence calls us to do that – along with JPII and BXVI calling us to do that.

We (most of us) are obviously living very high on the hog in terms of inefficiencies, lack of conservation, refusal to go onto alt energy even when it costs about the same or saves money, and refusal to recycle and do various things that do not cost money, but may take a tiny bit of thought or a few extra seconds of our time, maybe amounting to 3 or 5 extra minutes a day…many times during which we can be saying prayers or watching the news.

Energy and resource experts say we can reduce our energy and resource use by over 75% here in the U.S. without lowering our living standards or productivity, actually strengthening our economy. Just last night ABC News had a segment about how much food families waste in America with about 25% of the food budget being thrown away (see abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=18337611&sid=7623874&cid=7623874 ) – and these types of waste were not even included in these energy and resource studies.

Even though my husband and I have reduced our GHG emissions (and concomitant harmful polllution) by over 60% below our 1990 level, we still have more to do. A lot more. So I am also living high on the profligacy hog, and need to continue my journey of helping to reduce my harm to people and God’s creation.

About half the meterologists do not agree with the erswhile “climate scientists” on MMGW. You can’t just dismiss them out of hand as hacks.

Maybe you could demonstrate for us how energy and resource use can be reduced 75% without lowering living standards and productivity.

 

[SamH]

Maybe you could demonstrate for us how energy and resource use can be reduced 75% without lowering living standards and productivity.

If that were possible it would probably have happened already.

 

[buffalo]

Draft UN climate report shows 20 years of overestimated global warming, skeptics warn

A preliminary draft of a report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was leaked to the public this month, and climate skeptics say it contains fresh evidence of 20 years of overstated global warming.
The report – which is not scheduled for publication until 2014 – was leaked by someone involved in the IPCC’s review process, and is available for download online. Bloggers combing through the report discovered a chart comparing the four temperature models the group has published since 1990. Each has overstated the rise in temperaturehttp://global.fncstatic.com/static/v/all/img/external-link.png that Earth actually experienced.
“Temperatures have not risen nearly as much as almost all of the climate models predicted,” Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, told FoxNews.com.

…It is evidence that CO2 is not nearly as strong a climate driver as the IPCC has been assuming.’- Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville

Read more: foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-models-overestimated-global-warming/#ixzz2JPlMVFS2

Read more: foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-models-overestimated-global-warming/#ixzz2JPkmkHtG

 

[SuperLuigi]

It is my understanding that the persistent high pressure over the midwest and the resulting drought is not simply the El Nino/La Nina cycle in the Pacific, but a confluence of cool-down in the eastern Pacific and warming in the west Atlantic temperature cycle. It will be interesting to see whether this time it will be worse, better or the same as those in the 1950s and the 1930s. But it is a cyclic phenomenon.

Not all scientists agree with GW and among those who do, not all are persuaded that it’s MMGW. We have seen those citations pro and con on here endlessly.

Who, exactly, are the “wasteful hogs”? Who, exactly, do you want to deprive of heat for their homes? What, precisely, do you want to do about transportation of goods?

I’m a scientist who disagrees with ACC.

They aren’t looking at the thermodynamic feedback loops enough.

And the whole climate-gate nonsense is nothing short of an embarrassment.

 

[lynnvinc]

Except for the fact that the oceans absorb huge amounts of this heat and it takes more than a couple years of low solar flare activity (what happened to the 15 years you posted about earlier?) to actually change global temps. Given the massive amount of solar activity the earth is being hit with it is disturbing that we haven’t seen an increase in global temps for the past 16 years.

The sun is always shining. I’ll grant you that.

And, you are right, the oceans do absorb huge amounts of heat – which is what the climate scientists think is partly behind the slow down in the warming over the past decade – here’s a good discussion of how when there is a global surface cooling, this is accompanied by an increase in ocean heat content increase, due to anomalous downward heat fluxes: realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/global-warming-and-ocean-heat-content/

Please note, tho, that there has not been any global cooling down to pre-1980 levels:



Because of all the other factors that impact climate (the “noise”), it is important to look at several decades of data to find a trend of global warming, not just 10 or 15 years.

The greenhouse effect theory is very well established and accepted by all climate scientists; they know our Earth would be about 30C cooler without the natural greenhouse effect (caused by greenhouse gases like CO2 in the atmosphere) - it would violate the laws of physics not to have a greenhouse effect (even Mars has a tiny one, and Venus has a really huge one). Plus there is abundant paleoclimate evidence on earth to back up the greenhouse effect – re warming & cooling periods coinciding with atmospheric GHG levels. It would be indeed weird if only CO2 released by nature (like from volcanic activity burning up coal seams) led to global warming, but fossil fuel burning by people does not.

---

So here’s the choice that we laypeople have to make in light of the evidence the climate scientists have put forward:

Mitigate climate change in ways that help you save money, gain better health, maintain or increase your living standards, help the economy, and to boot reduce harming & killing people and others of Gods creation.

Or not, fearing that mitigating climate change will lead to freezing (or sweltering) to death in the dark.

 

[pnewton]

Please note, tho, that there has not been any global cooling down to pre-1980 levels:

That chart is encouraging. The average temperaturt of the ocean has only risen 0.8 degrees in 130 years.

 

[SamH]

The sun is always shining. I’ll grant you that.

And, you are right, the oceans do absorb huge amounts of heat – which is what the climate scientists think is partly behind the slow down in the warming over the past decade – here’s a good discussion of how when there is a global surface cooling, this is accompanied by an increase in ocean heat content increase, due to anomalous downward heat fluxes: realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/10/global-warming-and-ocean-heat-content/

Please note, tho, that there has not been any global cooling down to pre-1980 levels:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif

Because of all the other factors that impact climate (the “noise”), it is important to look at several decades of data to find a trend of global warming, not just 10 or 15 years.
.

The first issue is the solar activity can’t be measured back that far. The second issue is the earth was coming out of a mini ice age during much of your graph. I notice the most recent decade on your graph does indeed show a cooling - which is surprising considering the massive solar activity during the last decade. Add 700 years to your graph and we’ll see that the last 200 years are still cooler than the 12th to 15th centuries.

 

[Erich]

Energy and resource experts say we can reduce our energy and resource use by over 75% here in the U.S. without lowering our living standards or productivity, actually strengthening our economy.

Mitigate climate change in ways that help you save money, gain better health, maintain or increase your living standards, help the economy, and to boot reduce harming & killing people and others of Gods creation.

Such as?

 

[lynnvinc]

The first issue is the solar activity can’t be measured back that far. The second issue is the earth was coming out of a mini ice age during much of your graph. I notice the most recent decade on your graph does indeed show a cooling - which is surprising considering the massive solar activity during the last decade. Add 700 years to your graph and we’ll see that the last 200 years are still cooler than the 12th to 15th centuries.

There is no significant cooling using a 30 year running avergae smoothing, which is necessary to see beyond the day to day and year to year ups and downs, due to the many factors impacting climate. People keep “going down the up escalator” and think mitigating climate change requires us to freeze in the dark and climb up ladders upside down:

http://www.skepticalscience.net/images/TempEscalator_500.gif

Re the medieval warm period, it may surprise people, but climate scientists know about that and its geographical extent and the reasons for it, and it in no way disproves global warming of today any more than the great warming of the end-Permian 251 mya disproves global warming of today.

Here’s some info on the medieval warm period – skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm

Methinks people just don’t want to turn off lights not in use – too much effort

 

[lynnvinc]

If that were possible it would probably have happened already.

You’d think, but obviously not. That people & businesses, say, in America have not reduced their GHG emissions by 75% when on the whole they could do so cost-efffectivly, saving money without lowering productivity or living standards just sort of proves that the entire field of economics is built on loose sand being hit by Hurricane Sandy, because “There is no such thing as an economically rational maximizing man.”

I guess we have to look to Freud, human nature, our forefather, Cain, the devil, or the dev-oils for some explanations…

 

[Erich]

People keep “going down the up escalator” and think mitigating climate change requires us to freeze in the dark and climb up ladders upside down:

http://www.skepticalscience.net/images/TempEscalator_500.gif

Your chart needs to go back further… by about 5,000 years!

The retreat of a glacier in Peru is being blamed on man-made global warming, based on the “proof” that more and more ancient plant beds were being newly uncovered each year as the ice retreated (they started measuring in 2002). Carbon dating indicated that most of these plant beds have been buried for at least 5,000 years.

Think about that for a minute. What that really says is, the earth today is still not as warm as it was 5,000+ years ago (i.e. the ancient plant beds are only now being uncovered, the plants themselves were obviously growing long before they were later covered by ice). Was mankind also responsible for the warm temperatures 5,000+ years ago? I highly doubt it; mankind was no more responsible for the warm temperatures 5,000+ years ago than for the subsequent cooler temperatures.

 

[lynnvinc]

Your chart needs to go back further… by about 5,000 years!

The retreat of a glacier in Peru is being blamed on man-made global warming, based on the “proof” that more and more ancient plant beds were being newly uncovered each year as the ice retreated (they started measuring in 2002). Carbon dating indicated that most of these plant beds have been buried for at least 5,000 years.

Think about that for a minute. What that really says is, the earth today is still not as warm as it was 5,000+ years ago (i.e. the ancient plant beds are only now being uncovered, the plants themselves were obviously growing long before they were later covered by ice). Was mankind also responsible for the warm temperatures 5,000+ years ago? I highly doubt it; mankind was no more responsible for the warm temperatures 5,000+ years ago than for the subsequent cooler temperatures.

And come to find out Podunk, XYZ, was hotter 7,492 years ago on May 22 than Death Valley on its hottest day. Still does not disprove that the global average temperature has not been increasing these past 30 or 50 years. It just proves weather and climate can change in various localities, and lends some support that global climate change can happen, and that actually strengthens, not weakens, the argument that we are experiencing global warming in our time.

The end-Permian (251 mill yrs ago) was quite a bit hotter than today – some 6C hotter, which wiped out 95% of life on earth. Something to consider when “playing with matches,” so to speak, as we are doing.

 

[lynnvinc]

Such as?

If people sincerely look for solutions, they shall find; and prayer also helps.

There is no silver bullet, but many many things we can do to reduce our greenhouse gases (and also reduce concomitant harmfull local and regional pollution), with the general categories being Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and buy recycled), and go on alt energy (wind, solar) when affordable/feasible. We need to keep in mind that nearly every product involves GHG emissions & other pollution from resource extraction, shipping, processing, manufacturing, retailing, shopping, and disposing, and often they use up or waste finite resources.

Here are just a few things from which one can select to get started…

USE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

• Go solar – it is cost-competitive in many areas now.
• Get 100% wind generated electricity from GREEN MOUNTAIN ENERGY. Ph. 866-785-4668, greenmountain.com
• Save $$ long-run with a plug-in Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf, & run it on alt energy.

REDUCE consumption & buy things that last.

CONSERVE ENERGY: turn off lights not in use, insulate, etc.

DRIVE LESS & “hypermile” (save gas):

• run multiple errands
• live close to work/school
• turn off engine in drive-thrus
• off-set some car driving – bicycle, walk, take public transportation

ENERGY EFFICIENT items save $$ in long run:

• compact fluorescent & LED bulbs
• Energy efficient car, hybrid or electric car
• Appliances with Energy Star label
• SunFrost frig, 1/10 the energy; expensive, but saves $$ in long run (also reduces food spoilage): sunfrost.com

CONSERVE WATER (requires energy to pump & heat it) and save $$hundreds/year:

• low-flow showerhead, toilet
• turn off water while brushing teeth
• don’t water lawn (grass is drought resistant), or water early morning or evening, and not on windy days.
• fix leaks
• Xeriscape (drought resistant plants)

REUSE, avoid throwaways. Use:

• back side of paper
• reusable cups, cloth napkins, diapers
• artificial Christmas trees - have a “green Christmas”

RECYCLE (saves resources & energy)

BUY RECYCLED PRODUCTS (paper, etc.)

EAT LOW on the FOOD CHAIN (meatless Fridays, or Tues & Fri), or go veggie

PLANT TREES

 

[lynnvinc]

I think this is an interesting study, both in light of the OP and the Medieval Warm Period having been brought up:

Greenhouse Gases Affect Rainfall Differently Than Natural Global Warming
January 31, 2013 at redorbit.com/news/science/1112774827/complexities-of-global-warming-rainfall-013113/

"An international group of scientists has shown that global warming from greenhouse gases affects global rainfall patterns differently than global warming from solar heating. Using computer model simulations, the research team showed that global rainfall has increased less over the present-day warming period than during the Medieval Warm Period between 950 and 1250 AD despite the fact that temperatures today are higher than during that time…
NATURE article at nature.com/nature/journal/v493/n7434/full/nature11784.html

 

[Erich]

Go solar – it is cost-competitive in many areas now.

Is that with, or without, subsidies?

Solar is interesting but it will never be able to replace what oil and gas does now. Do the calculations. Get the information on the internet. How much solar energy falls on the entire surface of the USA? What is the conversion efficiency? How much of the time are clouds blocking the sun? How long is the sun out in a 24 hour period? It’s less that 8 hours in December in most of the country… and you can’t grow anything where there is a solar panel hogging the sun. How many megawatts does it take to run a major city, or for that point the entire USA? Solar can’t come close to putting that out. People in Seattle or the New England states don’t have have a chance at making solar energy work for them.

Solar cells definitely don’t last forever; even the manufacturers will tell you that (but only if you ask them). Last time I checked the specifications, the life is about 10 to 20 years. By then, the surface coating starts becoming opaque from sunlight, and starts blocking out light to the semiconductor material. The solar cells will not suddenly drop dead, it will just get weaker and weaker until the output is worthless. Then to replace them you have a big expense.

The payback period on a solar cell is complicated. It includes things like “What interest would you get on the money if you didn’t use it to buy the solar cell?” The solar cell technology came from the Integrated Circuit manufacturing techniques developed over decades by the semiconductor industry. It costs over a billion dollars to build an IC fabrication plant. How do you count all of the money that has been spent on technology to get to this point? This includes the cost of educating all of the engineers. And by the way, all of this technology was (and is now) developed using oil and gas. You can’t and likely never will be able to build or power an IC fab plant with solar.

 

[Erich]

Get 100% wind generated electricity from GREEN MOUNTAIN ENERGY. Ph. 866-785-4668, greenmountain.com

From this link:

Large wind turbines require a large amount of energy to operate. Other electricity plants generally use their own electricity, and the difference between the amount they generate and the amount delivered to the grid is readily determined. Wind plants, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear to be accounted for in their output figures. At the facility in Searsburg, Vermont, for example, it is apparently not even metered and is completely unknown click here].

The Searsburg, VT facility is owned by [you guessed it] Green Mountain Energy.

Industrial wind power looks like it could turn out to be a laundering scheme: “dirty” energy goes in, “clean” energy comes out. One need only ask utilities to show how much less “dirty” electricity they purchase because of wind-generated power to see that something is amiss in the wind industry’s claims. If wind worked and were not mere window dressing, the industry would trot out some real numbers. But they don’t. One begins to suspect that they can’t.

 

[Erich]

Save $$ long-run with a plug-in Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf, & run it on alt energy.

From this Sept. 2012 Huffpo post (emphasis mine)
General Motors Co sold a record number of Chevrolet Volt sedans in August – but that probably isn’t a good thing for the automaker’s bottom line.

Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to estimates provided to Reuters by industry analysts and manufacturing experts.

Cheap Volt lease offers meant to drive more customers to Chevy showrooms this summer may have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce.

How much money are people going to be able to save in the long run if GM can’t get to a point where it makes money on the vehicles (and consequently discontinues production)? A little over 38,700 units of the Volt/Ampera family have been sold worldwide through December 2012, including more than 5,000 Opel/Vauxhall Amperas delivered in Europe through December 2012 – meaning a little over 38,700 folks will likely be spending money on a replacement vehicle a lot sooner than they otherwise would.

 

[Erich]

compact fluorescent & LED bulbs

Most CFLs contain 3-5mg of mercury per bulb; the “eco-friendly” ones contain as little as 1mg. But even these small amounts are a concern for landfills and waste incinerators, where the mercury may be released and contribute to air and water pollution.

Special handling instructions for breakage are not printed on the packaging of household CFL bulbs in many countries. The amount of mercury released by one bulb can temporarily exceed U.S. federal guidelines for chronic exposure.%between% And, despite following EPA best-practice clean-up guidelines on broken CFLs, researchers were unable to remove mercury from carpet, and agitation of the carpet — such as by young children playing — created localized concentrations as high as 0.025 mg/m3 in air close to the carpet, even weeks after the initial breakage.

And, according to the document at this link, “If all homes in Quebec were required to switch from (incandescent) bulbs to CFLs, there would be an increase of almost 220,000 tonnes in CO2 emissions [emphasis mine] in the province, equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 40,000 automobiles.”