More global warming bits
Oct 26th, 2008 by dmess0r
After watching a wonderful documentary on Antarctica on MOJO TV, I decided to do some more up-to-date research on what the scientific community has to say about global warming. In my opinion, the only real source we can/should reference is the National Environment Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) and the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Both centers contain relevant data; paleoclimatic as well as current. Much of the data I refer to below is based upon the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Ultimately there is no scientific debate on whether or not the mean average of global climate temperature is rising.
Given this information one immediately jumps to the conclusion that this increase is drastic, widespread and spells out the end of the world or some such nonsense. Luckily the end of the world isn’t scheduled for Dec. 21 2012, and not only are temperature increases non-uniform, there are places on the globe which have been getting cooler since we have began to measure more accurately.
Whereas many parts of the world are experiencing an overall increase in temperature, some parts of the southeastern U.S and parts of the North Atlantic have decreased in temperature over the last 100 years.
What is also interesting is that while the Arctic ice is decreasing, the Antarctic ice sheet is actually growing slightly. A quote from the NCDC:
Sea ice in the Antarctic has shown very little trend over the same period, or even a slight increase since 1979.
Another misconception that countless individuals have is this notion that melting glaciers are somehow responsible for the global mean sea level rising. The rise we’ve seen over the last several thousand years is due in large part to thermal expansion. Even today, modern science still does not fully understand how glacier dynamics play into the hydrologic system. A quote from the NCDC:
… our current understanding of ice sheet dynamics renders uncertainties too large to be able to assess the likelihood of large-scale melting of these ice sheets.
The moral of this story is that while global warming is happening there are simply too many unknowns to make sweeping statements about glacier melt, rising sea levels and the overall impact on the various species which inhabit our planet.
Its funny how some scientist use today as the start day of temperature change, we are at one of the coldest points in mans history, of course everything seems warmer from this stand point.
How do we as a race change anything global as long as human populations continue to breed at unprecedented rates, 6 billion plus humans eating, drinking, polluting , craving newer technology with a complete lack of any responsibility for what they are doing.
The human race evolved because of curiosity and the quest of a better life , this type of thinking is ingrained in our DNA over millions of years, we as a race despise each other and believe we are superior to everything else on this plant, this is a cocktail for enviable disaster .
The earth will continue as it has for over 4 billion years and although we humans I believe play a small role in global problems we are not the only culprit, orbital shift, tectonic plate movement and the earth own internal cooling are major factors to any global climate shift and we are no where near intelligent enough too alter what is happening.
Humans are a greedy arrogant race which consumes everything in its path, and a race which believes they hold ownership too this planet and everything on it and for that reason alone we are doomed.
Shawn, while your comment is from the heart, I urge you to review the scientific data from the Vostok core samples regarding historic (and paleohistoric) CO2 levels. You will find that this planet is at the diameteic opposite of a ‘cold phase’. We’ve been riding a warming trend for approximately the last 20,000 years.