Global warming's timing problem

Beth, you state:
"But global warming is causing the snow to melt earlier by around two to four weeks. "

That's a pretty bold assertion. What evidence backs up this statement?

Powercords says: "That's a pretty bold assertion. What evidence backs up this statement?"

eivdence is not necessary in the religion of global warming. just keep the faith! and trust that the whacked out enivronmental loonies on the left are guiding us down the path of righteousness.

PowerCord: "That's a pretty bold assertion. What evidence backs up this statement?"
Answer: USGS observations.

More man-made global warming nonsense from the same liberals that gave us the "zoo animials will be killed" yesterday.

Complete hoax... man has nothing to do with the warming cycle... and you can't prove that he does. Oh.. and Al Gore is not an expert.

PowerCord said:
Beth, you state:
"But global warming is causing the snow to melt earlier by around two to four weeks. "
That's a pretty bold assertion. What evidence backs up this statement?

Ditto for me, I always hear these statements with no evidence. Anyone against global warming and has concrete facts and evidence that it isn't as bad as people say, never get a platform to speak without it being shot down and never heard

This article is all about the words "could" "might" "will likely" "estimates" "may". Nothing more than creating unnecessary fear.

What a bunch of GARBAGE !!!!! We are breaking low record temps all over America in the last few months !!!!!

Why does the Globe and other left wing media outlets still talk about global warming? Global warming is a political platform for left wing moonbats. Beth, stop wasting my time.

Al Gore and his cronies have become hundred millionaires off the fraud that is "climate change". The day the charade collapses will be a better day for everyone.

I believe in the science behind global warming, but you'll never convince the doubters by running an article about drought after three weeks solid of rain and cooler temperatures.

Green is the new red. It will succeed where Communism failed.

Really??? The midwest Americas are breaking low record temps?? Hey blind, they are setting high temp recs. And they are experiencing droughts.

And the northeast, that is where the low pressure system dip further south because of the increased fresh water from the polar cap melts? THAT is what is causing the record low temps here because it is constantly RAINING!!!

They got it wrong, the sea levels are not increasing, the water is going in the air.

Global warming has ruined my spring. Just keep spewing out that garbage from your mouth and your vehicles.

And... just you wait... El Nino is here, just watch what happens.

I only wish those of you that blindly scream GARBAGE and Al Gore is a hypocrit would be the first to go.

I'm not one to tell people not to be skeptical (question everything - including the scientists who disagree with anthropogenic climate change - where is their funding coming from?). However, whether anthropogenic or not, there is a warming trend, which will cause climate change across the globe (not all climates will trend towards warmer at all times). This is clearly causing changes in the earth's cycles, and it only makes sense to prepare to adapt. "Flash" states all the terms (could, might, will likely, estimates, may) create unnecessary fear. I wonder whether individuals like Flash feel the same about the "war on terror." We owe it to ourselves to prepare for climate change and terrorist attacks alike.

And to clarify my last comment, I mean we owe it to ourselves to prepare for *or prevent to the extent possible* terrorist attacks and climate change. One of the best ways to do both would be to find an alternative lifestyle that does not require that we occupy other countries (militarily or otherwise) in an effort to quench our thirst for oil.

Anonymous post #7: Dumbest thing ever. It's called GLOBAL warming, not America warming. And it's measured over the long term, not just a few months.

However, here's an interesting thought:

As the ice cap retreats further and further and the tundra thaws, more and more plants and even trees are growing further north. In a landscape once covered only by snow and ice, will these new plant habitats absorb significant amounts of the anthropogenic CO2 in our atmosphere?

Al Gore and his cronies have become hundred millionaires of their bogus carbon credits scheme and the man-made GW BS.....A backwater hick from Tennessee has fooled the "intellectuals" into joining his cult that is making him rich. MMGW and Climate Change is hocus pocus.

Why do the commenters on this blog insist on doubting established scientists? Are you guys physicists? Climatologists? geologists? This information isn't coming from random folks on the street -- it's coming from the U.S. Geological Survey. I couldn't imagine a less partisan source. What possible interest would the USGS have in lying about aquifer changes? It's time we all face the music: the climate is changing. It is caused by human-caused emissions. The changes listed here are the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended.) If we want our children to grow up in a world that resembles the one that we know and love, then it's time we start getting serious and start dealing with this crisis.

What evidence backs up this statement?

The final analysis may indeed prove the skeptics correct, but the assertion that there is anything less than a mountain of evidence which you must confront in your quest proves that you have no idea what you're talking about and also that you don't think that this is any kind of obstacle to be taken seriously among yourselves.

I read it as Mack talking about glonal warming, not Beth, although it's not a quote.

Please note that they just said global warming, not man-made, not greenhouse gasses, just the fact that average global temperatures have been trending upwards. That's a fact that ought to be verifiable, regardless of what you loonies think of the cause.

Please also note that the real point here is that snow melt has been happening earlier in the spring, regardless of what you loonies think of the cause. That's a fact that ought to be verifiable: why don't you check before ranting?

Liberal's = Fear Mongering.

If they cant' convince you that global warming is real then their next tactic is to scrare you.. Why do liberals believe everthying they read? Esp the Globe and the Times. Didn't the liberals coin the term "question authority" Hey, if liberals want to be led around lilke blind sheep, then so be it.. I'm a leader and a free analytical thinker. Not a mindless robot.

Al Gore was the worst thing that ever happened to Global warming. Once someone politicizes science, it turns into a highly debated policy issue, and in turn, everyone (including the layman) has an opinion on the subject based on nothing more than hearsay.

Hey K-

Get your facts straight and come back to see me. Polar ice cap is not melting at the rate it was once thought. The people who were measuring the amount of ice admitted that some of their sensors were not calibrated correctly so they don't really know if the polar ice cap is melting at the rate once thought. Why do liberal think that people who have lived on this earth for a realitivly short time actually believe they are powerful enough to influence mother nature and global warming. you must think pretty highly of yourself.

Related by season to snow-melt, look also at that time in late winter when the ponds are no longer safe to skate on or to support ice fishing.

Thoreau took records of 'ice-out' at Walden Pond. Ice-out is when you can no longer walk across on the ice because it ain't there.

Ice-out is getting earlier year by year, in parallel with Carbon Dioxide emissions.

By the way, last winter Todd Palin was not able to compete in his snow-dependent winter sports -- IN ALASKA!! -- because there wasn't enough cold. Is it due to his hot wife, her hot air, the heated pursuit of her by the media, or global warming?

I don't know, but that is a local phenomenon, just one aberration to the normal data. The ice-out at Walden Pond? That's an established well-reported fact. You can look it up.

AGW: Scam of the millenium.

It is perfectly clear from the point that wgc just made (well put!) that the denialists aren't trying to inform themselves, aren't interested in the science of this issue, have no idea what the facts vs. the predictions are, and are political hacks who fight anything "left." If "global warming" is in the article and it isn't bagging on it, it must be moonbat propaganda!

Here's are some facts: until the Bush administration, science positions in government went to capable scientists. There are many still with jobs there. They are Democrats, Republicans, independents, Christians, atheists, and Buddhists. They look at data and interpret it. They make less than $75,000 a year. And their conclusions are remarkably similar: it's getting hotter and drier in the world.

Now you can scream against these facts all you want, wingnuts, but they don't change. Get used to it. And your god help you if they're right and you're wrong and you all destroyed civilization because of your petty politics.

"Are you guys physicists? Climatologists? geologists?"
And neither are you. Al Gore is a lawyer and an advocate, not an expert and he is making millions in his roll as advocate. Temps have been increasing on all the sun’s planets until a few years ago. Now it has cooled in the last 5 or 6 years more than it warmed in the last several decades (USGS data). Even so, the changes are only a degree or so either way, usually measured in tenths or hundredths of a degree not enough to cause the catastrophic climatic changes like earlier snow melt etc. previously mentioned. Some parts of the globe are warming while others cool, due to altered air and ocean currents which are cyclic. True aggregate global temperature variations are the result of changes on the sun more than any other cause, hence the changes on the other planets. No absolute correlation has been established between CO2 concentrations and warming. Ice melt in the Bering Sea has been balanced by ice forming in the North Atlantic. The ice sheet is growing in Antarctica. The Bering Sea phenomenon can be explained by shifting Pacific currents that are cyclic.

The true crazies here are the “global warming loons” that insist that we throw out common sense and drink the religious global warming Kool Aid without asking questions. FYI good science was never based on consensus the qualifications of the scientist notwithstanding. Good science is always based on repetitive verifiable observations. It was once a consensus that the world was flat. We see where that went. It was a scientific consensus that bleeding was the proper treatment for fever (quackery that cost our first president his life before his time). You would have to be a blind fool or willfully ignorant to doubt that there is good science showing man made global warming to be a myth. Most so called global warming experts are hired scientific prostitutes that will say anything for the money. They then refuse to debate in open scientific arenas. Time will prove me correct.

FOLLOW THE MONEY. Who stands to make billions from the imposition of the fixes for “Green house gas emissions”. GE for one (Owns MSNBC and now the Weather Chanel.) The U.S. Government plans to tax industry and energy to death increasing the cost of goods and services and home heating cost. You global warming loons falsely think that the energy companies will take the cost of Cap and Trade (A.K.A. Confuse the Crap out of them and Tax them to death) out of company profits. Not so. The cost will be passed on to the consumer . . . you. This is a big money power grab scheme that will do nothing to improve the environment.

When I see the Climatologist and weather experts consistently correctly predict the weather next week, then I might believe they might have a handle on weather 20 years from now. Frankly, the science just isn’t that good. It is all theory and as others have pointed out, the buffering effect of increased bio-metabolism at higher climatic temperatures has to be included. It has not been in the models I have seen. We are dealing with quacks, fools, and out and out liars who want us to completely give up our liberty and hope for the future for a pipe dream. Not me!

Lmack49, you are wrong. I'll stick to your last paragraph.

Climate is not weather.
Current theories: magnetism, gravity, evolution. all bunk, right?
Models you have seen: none. Unless you have a PhD in physics or climatology and work for NOAA or the IPCC, you are reading the same stuff as us.

Take a science class, for pete's sake.

Interesting how the sky-is-falling types wear their overzealous emotional reactions on their sleeves. It seems sensible enough that this type of person is susceptible to being hoodwinked by the notion of AGW. The climate is in a constant state of flux, has been for 4.5 million years, and will be for the next. Adapt or die, but don't tax me for a Socialist agenda under the guise of some stupid hoax.

I would like to utilize this internet weblog technology to get my point across, I only ask those to read this thoroughly, and I apologize up front to those who might not agree with my viewpoint.

I realize and agree that climate change is real, is currently happening, and has always occurred on this planet. The point where I disagree is that industrial/technological humans are solely to blame. There are so many other factors overlooked that can affect the climate on this planet: the big ball of burning gas approximately 8 light minutes away that cycles its output approximately every 12 years, water vapor opposed to CO2, natural variability, etc. Looking at this from a practical standpoint the earth has been completely covered with ice many times over its existence between brief warming periods, which we are currently in. The glaciers melted naturally after the ice ages, what caused that could it be the sun, its activity, our orbit, naturally, I am not sure the answer. But I am sure that there were no SUVs and no industrial revolutions. All I am saying is that the scientific method states that in order to prove a theory one must attempt to disprove it to the point where it cannot be disproven (every other theory is science/physics). It is a basic method that was formulated in the attempt to minimize all influences of bias and prejudice when testing a theory or hypothesis, though due to human nature bias and prejudice cannot be completely taken out of the equation. In this case these pseudo-scientists are going at this the complete wrong way – they are stacking the deck. They are using their own skewed results on top of each other in a short time period of actual skewed data in order to try to prove their theory right. Other than funding, I am not sure why they are doing this. It proves false science and it makes the scientific community look bad. I am trying to inform people that governments are smart and they are trying to use a certain tactic - alarmism - to take away freedoms and gain more control. So governments, who may or may not know how science works properly, are exploiting the scientists’ false results to impose political agendas to control people in certain ways by making them scared that their actions or lack of actions will destroy the planet. Unfortunately it is easy for people to believe all of the lies they are told, that is the problem, we are in a ‘green’ domino effect, and when false information continues to enlighten supposedly intelligent people, we have a problem: politicians impose regulations on humans as a result of non-factual scientific anti-evidence that climate change is the sole result of the anthropologic world, all while disguising these regulations as taxes to ‘help’ or ‘fix’ the environment when they really are planning to subsidize their outrageous spending habits (everything is not a crisis, you cannot stimulate an economy by creating unthinkable debt).

To keep this short, I have already made my point clear: simply that humans should not regulate other humans with regard to an unproven theory. I think that is fundamentally wrong. I also bring the point that the human race should focus our efforts on actual situations that we assume we can control and/or may have an effect on. Not on situations that our out of our control: natural variation of the earth’s climate. We should figure out how to adapt to natural climate change, as opposed to attempting to manipulate or influence it.

Oh, don't always believe the data from NASA or the IPCC either, they have admitted to false reports in the past, directly associated with temperature calculations. Not to mention, they are funded by some of the world’s richest governments, and if they actually proved that climate change occurs naturally, which it does, then they would most likely lose a percentage of their funding, because the governments wouldn't need their false data to mislead the public any more. At which point the governments would just find other ways to attempt to scare people into control.

For example:
Here is a quote directly from the IPCC’s mandate: “Its [IPCC] role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of HUMAN-INDUCED climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.” It provides direct evidence that biases exist and some how a large portion of the scientific community has tunnel vision. I will point out the term ‘human-induced’ and will allow you to create your own opinion. There is no mentioning of natural phenomena. That is completely false science, to discount all other potential reasoning why the earth’s climate might change, and focus on the anthropologic effect. It is ironic how those with my view are considered ‘skeptics’ with our ‘heads in the sand’ or the ‘flat earth society’. These characterizations couldn’t be further from the truth, we are open-minded, rational thinking people who understand how science works. I understand this is a sensitive topic as well, and that people associate saving the earth with doing the right thing (don’t get me wrong it is fulfilling to know that there are so many good people out there), the problem with that is when governments go to far, and take away freedoms. I have started to put my own theory together: in today’s world power = bias and money = prejudice, haven’t been able to disprove it yet. There is an increasing opposition to the narrow-minded (humans are the cause for everything therefore we must control them) view points. I thank everyone who can understand these simple facts, and I can only hope that we don’t let this embarrassing pseudo-scientific situation get any more out of control than it already is.

One more thing, those who continue to vilify fossil fuels, the internal combustion engine, rocket technology, computer science, any use of energy that creates carbon for that matter, need to look themselve's in the mirror and ask themselve's are they comfortable with modern healthcare, can they appreciate the refrigeration of food supplies, can they understand that transportation and communication techniques are necessary for the flow of the most effective ideas, concepts, and prototypes to make life easier, longer, safer, better in the current free world? In the last hundred years how much has the average life expectancy of humans increased since the industrial revolution, how many diseases have been cured, how has surgery become so advanced? I will let you answer that on your own. Point: technology got us here and everyone on this blog is using it to at least express their opinion, some of us appreciate it, some of us take advantage of it, I please ask that you don’t vilify it. Efficiencies will always improve in the natural technological marketplace, please don’t impose efficiency standards as the result of political mandate, the shaky economy will not be able to handle the shock of mandated changes imposed upon it. For those who cannot appreciate the natural progress of a free, hard-working country and world, please attempt to live in the absence of these modern existence technologic tools and see how it is to survive for an extended period of time. I have written enough, I can get further into detail in my next entry.

Once again, sorry if I offended anyone with this information, it is so hard to convince closed minded people how science works, and what you are seeing today is not how science works, it is a mockery of the scientific method and it is all about the money and power. I admit that my title isn’t officially a scientist, but I can inform you that I have a vast knowledge of math and science, I have an engineering degree, and the best knowledge I ever obtained was the explanation of the scientific method in elementary school. To any other scientists who may come across this, please point out my flaws, I realize I am not perfect, and if you can disagree with my view relating the scientific method to the current climate change fiasco I would like to understand where you are coming from, maybe I can learn something new.

Global warming is not only altering wildlife habitat and changing the face of our planet, but it also poses a significant threat to human health and security. The rapid depletion of rain forests to meet the ever-increasing demand for forest products is just one example of how humans are irreversibly altering the Earth’s ecosystems.
www.agwcompany.com

The consequence of global change of a climate will negatively be reflected in all people, without an exception.Global warming is not only altering wildlife habitat and changing the face of our planet, but it also poses a significant threat to human health and security. The rapid depletion of rain forests to meet the ever-increasing demand for forest products is just one example of how humans are irreversibly altering the Earth’s ecosystems.
www.agwcompany.com

I plan on being an exception, Baurzhan. If my neighborhood floods, or dries out, or otherwise unfavorably changes, I will adapt by getting out of Dodge ASAP and putting down my stakes somewhere else. It would seem to be that this has happened a bazillion times throughout human history, and can predictably happen again. Just because you enjoy your little conveniences and supermarket food; you aren't exempt from the fact that nature doesn't f-ing care about you more than any other being. There were no SUVs or Industrial Evolution when primitive man dealt with climate change so why tax me into oblivion now, pray do tell?

I just went by Lake Shasta, its' a disasta, I have never seen the lake so low and surprise surprise Golmer, when I got down into California's valley; they was growin' rice; the most water consuming crop mass produced on the planet; it seems like some of us need to be starved, flooded or disease ridden to get the message. Global Climate change is going to either make us more thrifty, thoughtful and community oriented or it will make us argue over clear facts and eventually . . .parish. I would have taken a high speed railway or some other fuel saving means to go on my vacation but, since it was not available I just blew emissions all over Califonia and Oregon; I want a higher quality of life and I am willing to pay for it; are you? Of course, for some of you it is better to live a lie and weigh your meager options "money or the planet, hmmm, money or the planet?" We would all have more money and more time to enjoy ourselves if we just lived a better way.