Proof of global warming!

[Pangloss]

[Dave]

Ah, very good. I've seen a similar (if not the same) one before, but it made me chuckle

[ecoli]

Maybe people are just colder nowadays

[insane_alien]

i'm quite happy walking around in shorts and t-shirts at the moment. its 7*C in scotland just now. if its above 5 its shorts and t-shirt weather

[ecoli]

you're insane, alien. Pun intended.

[insane_alien]

nah just scottish

[bascule]

i'm quite happy walking around in shorts and t-shirts at the moment. its 7*C in scotland just now. if its above 5 its shorts and t-shirt weather

 

I'm not that bad, but the other day it dropped to about -20C here while I was at work and I had made the foolish decision that morning to wear sandals instead of shoes...

 

The funny thing was everyone kept complaining about how cold their feet were...

[silkworm]

Hahaha.

 

I was just a little boy in the 80s but I felt that the speedos came out of nowhere. It's good to know there's a reason for it.

 

I think the next proof will be when the Inuit begin their dominance of Olympic swimming.

[bascule]

I saw this and it cracked me up, so I thought I'd post it here.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1390510

 

Clinton Says Bush Is 'Flat Wrong' on Kyoto

 

MONTREAL Dec 9, 2005 — Former President Clinton told a global audience of diplomats, environmentalists and others Friday that the Bush administration is "flat wrong" in claiming that reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming would damage the U.S. economy.

 

With a "serious disciplined effort" to develop energy-saving technology, he said, "we could meet and surpass the Kyoto targets in a way that would strengthen and not weaken our economies."

 

Clinton, a champion of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing emissions-controls agreement opposed by the Bush administration, spoke in the final hours of a two-week U.N. climate conference at which Washington has come under heavy criticism for its stand.

 

Most delegations appeared ready Friday to leave an unwilling United States behind and open a new round of negotiations on future cutbacks in the emissions blamed for global warming.

 

"There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating and caused by human activities," Clinton told hundreds of delegates, environmentalists and others. "We are uncertain about how deep and the time of arrival of the consequences, but we are quite clear they will not be good."

 

Canadian officials said the U.S. delegation was displeased with the last-minute scheduling of the Clinton speech. But U.S. delegation chief Paula Dobriansky issued a statement saying events like Clinton's appearance "are useful opportunities to hear a wide range of views on global climate change."

 

In the real work of the conference, delegates from more than 180 countries bargained behind closed doors until 6:30 a.m. Friday, making final adjustments to an agreement to negotiate additional reductions in carbon dioxide and other gases after 2012, when the Kyoto accord expires.

 

This statement is just ridiculous:

 

"There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating and caused by human activities," Clinton told hundreds of delegates, environmentalists and others. "We are uncertain about how deep and the time of arrival of the consequences, but we are quite clear they will not be good."

 

I'd put that right up there with "It depends on what your definition of the word 'is' is" as far as stupid things Clinton has said.

[doG]

That is pretty funny....

[Pangloss]

I think it would be even more foolish to sign it now. The biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses is China, which is exempt from Kyoto, as is India which is growing rapidly as well.

 

I guess we kinda lucked out here, in a way. Clinton would certainly have sent it to the senate for ratification if they hadn't listened to their lobbyist pocket-liners and passed a unanimous motion to oppose it.

 

Go figure -- something to be grateful to the corporations for! How come the left doesn't cheer that one, eh? ;-)

[silkworm]

I think it would be even more foolish to sign it now. The biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses is China, which is exempt from Kyoto, as is India which is growing rapidly as well.

 

I've never looked at this as a competition, and I also see our (the US) contribution to air polution as more than substantial.

[Pangloss]

It's a question of fairness.

 

China is conspicuously not susceptible to persuasion by example.

[cosine]

It's a question of fairness.

 

China is conspicuously not susceptible to persuasion by example.

Fairness? Good thing we're a country that never takes initiatives!

 

How logical is it to elect leaders that never want to make a sacrifice for the greater good?

 

Edit: However, the cartoon in the op is rather humourous.

[Pangloss]

I agree that's the problem we face here in the US. Basically our situation at the moment is that the Senate is largely under the thumb of special interest groups. Bear in mind that those groups are on the left as well as the right, but at the moment we're talking about the energy lobby. The Senate has to ratify all treaties. There's just nothing we can do about that -- it's in big black letters in the Constitution. Has nothing to do with Bush, really (but I got no real problem with general criticism of Bush on this subject) -- the Senate will not ratify Kyoto.

 

We're better of focusing on the re-elections of House Republicans in 2006, IMO. They control appropriations.

[bascule]

In regards to global warming, "air pollution" (in the form of greenhouse gasses) is just one of many climate forcings which alter the radiative imbalance of Earth's climate system. There is an extreme overemphasis on "greenhouse gasses" in regards to global warming, to the point that people think global warming is a direct result of CO₂ and all other causes are negligable.

 

This kind of alarmism undermines all sorts of climate science research which is trying to identify how various climate forcings interact and what kind of effects we can actually expect decades down the road.

 

If there is a problem, Kyoto isn't going to come close to solving it. Kyoto just wastes money. If you want to solve the problem, we're going to need more research.

[Pangloss]

But Bascule! Leonardo di Caprio was on Oprah recently along with an activist from an environmental group, and they said it was true!

[Tetrahedrite]

I think it would be even more foolish to sign it now. The biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses is China' date=' which is exempt from Kyoto, as is India which is growing rapidly as well.

[/quote']

Ah...try again.....the USA pollutes a hell of a lot more than China!!!

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3143798.stm

[JohnB]

Seriously, I've often wondered about the effect of car engines. Not the exhaust gasses, but the actual heat generated. The car's radiator is just a method of transferring heat from the engine to the atmosphere.

 

A hundred million (or so) cars must put out a lot of heat each day.

[Pangloss]

Gosh, it's a good thing you threw in three exclamation points there, Tetra. It almost stops one from noticing that your chart is three years out of date and only shows CO2 numbers. Will most people bother to read the article you linked, and realize that it actually shows China to be the #2 emitter three years ago?

 

This source mentions that China's automobile ownership (the emissions of which are essentially unregulated, though they are supposed to meet a very old European standard) have grown a whopping 30% since the 2002 statistics you posted.

 

Oh wait, I almost forgot, let me add a "!!!" to that. There we go.

 

Fortunately China actually shows interest in working on its emissions. One of the useful things about their system is that they're not susceptible to internal pressure from special interest groups. I certainly wouldn't pick their system over ours, but it appears to be an advantage in this area.

 

But that doesn't change the fact that they're the fastest growing emitter, are likely #1 in key areas of greenhouse gasses, and exempt from Kyoto, which they happily signed (gee, what a surprise).

[Phi for All]

In regards to global warming, "air pollution" (in the form of greenhouse gasses) is just one of many climate forcings which alter the radiative imbalance of Earth's climate system. There is an extreme overemphasis on "greenhouse gasses" in regards to global warming, to the point that people think global warming is a direct result of CO_{2[/sub'] and all other causes are negligable.}

_{How many of the other climate forcing criteria are as controllable as greenhouse gasses? I could be wrong but I think the overemphasis on greenhouse gasses may stem from the fact that regulation of fuel emissions would have a more cumulative effect than anything we could currently do to affect the Earth's radiative budget.}

[Sisyphus]

The affect of CO2 aside, it's still very much in our own best interest (by just about any measure you want) to get more serious about regulating our own environmental impact, regardless of whether the rest of the world does so as well. Global warming is merely the scariest of the potential consequences of short-sightedness, and curbing CO2 emmisions appears to be how we can slow it down the most for the least effort. We do need a better Kyoto pact, though, if only because it's useless if it isn't even implemented...

[bascule]

How many of the other climate forcing criteria are as controllable as greenhouse gasses?

 

Well, with the anticipated benefit of Kyoto being an SST "savings" of ~0.07 °C by the year 2050 (also note that SSTs are not a particularly accurate metric for atmospheric heat content), CO₂ doesn't seem to be particularly "controllable"

 

I could be wrong but I think the overemphasis on greenhouse gasses may stem from the fact that regulation of fuel emissions would have a more cumulative effect than anything we could currently do to affect the Earth's radiative budget.

 

I'd say land use changes may provide a greater potential, but all of this is highly speculative until we have skillful multi-decadal climate modelling.

 

A better assessment of risks and vulnerabilities is what's really needed.

[Tetrahedrite]

In post No. 11 this was the quote:

 

The biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses is[/b'] China

 

Then in post No. 20:

But that doesn't change the fact that they're the fastest growing emitter, are likely #1 in key areas [/b']of greenhouse gasses,

 

Which is it? Are they the fastest growing emitter or are they the biggest emitter? Your own source seems to indicate that your first comment is ambiguous at best, or plain wrong at worst.

 

Even assuming a 30% growth in emisssions, the USA still is the biggest emitter of GHG's, both in total and per capita.

[bascule]

Yes, last I checked the US emits 25% of the world's CO₂. However the largest concentration of NO₂ sits above Beijing and northeast China.

 

According to the 2005 National Research Council report, nitrogen deposition would appear to be a first order climate forcing.

 

Biogeochemical forcing involves changes in vegetation biomass and soils. For example, increased nitrogen deposition caused by greater anthropogenic emissions of ammonia (NH₃), nitric oxide (NO), and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) is a biogeochemical forcing of the climate system (Holland et al., 2005; Nitrogen deposition onto the United States and Western Europe: A synthesis of observations and models. Ecological Applications, 15, 38-57). This deposition has altered the functioning of soil, terrestrial vegetation, and aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Galloway et al. (2004; Nitrogen cycles: Past, present and future. Biogeochemistry 70:153-226). document that human activities increasingly dominate the nitrogen budget at the global scale and that fixed forms of nitrogen are accumulating in most environmental reservoirs.

 

This biogeochemical forcing results in significant alterations in the physical components of the climate system such as the surface albedo, and the partioning of atmospheric turbulence into sensible and latent heat components, which subsequently affects all other aspects of the climate system.

 

The modeling of the influence on long-term weather due to nitrogen deposition is in its early infancy. However, even now it needs to be recognized that this non-radiative biogeochemical climate forcing must be accounted for in any assessment of the relative and absolute role of the diversity of different human climate forcings.