On Gather today you will find an article that may entertain you. This article notes (correctly) that the state of Alaska has experienced cooler than normal weather over the past decade. The headline of this article unfortunately then implies that Alaska is entering an Ice Age. This assertion is utter hogwash of the most ignorant variety.
You may wish to step back a couple feet and look at the bigger picture. Here in the year 2012, the lower 48 states of the USA experienced the hottest calendar year ever recorded. The only geographic area of the continental USA that had colder than usual temperatures was a little coastal slice of Washington and Oregon- the rest of us were hotter than normal- and in the central plains, WAY hotter than normal, with a killing drought and summer heat wave that slaughtered cattle and crops.
Meanwhile, in the arctic ocean- the area that we call the "North Pole" and which we associate with Santa Claus and his elves- there is a floating mass of ice that covers thousands of square miles. Except that guess what, more of this ice melted in the 2012 than has ever melted before. Scientists see a strong trend here, and most of the scientists who work in what we call "climatology" expect that within the next 20 to 40 years, we will finally see a complete absence of ice in the summertime arctic ocean for the first time in millions of years. We all hope that Santa can swim.
So, it is in front of this backdrop that ignorant denialists here on Gather cackle gleefully that Alaska is entering an ice age. Well, granted, it has been a couple degrees fahrenheit colder in Alaska over the past ten years. But across the rest of the arctic, a much much larger area, it has been a couple degrees warmer over the same period, and ice has been disappearing. I try to wrap my mind around the idea that Alaska can have an ice age while the rest of the arctic proceeds to have a warm age. It does not wrap. Sooner or later, currents or wind patterns will change, and Alaska will warm up too. I mean, sure Alaska is a big place, but it is not big enough to cool down the rest of our planet like an ice cube in a glass of seven up, know what I mean?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, in Australia and Tasmania, temperatures are over 100 degrees fahrenheit with scorching winds blowing almost everywhere, and residents are keeping within sight of their cars or trucks in order to drive away fast when the wildfires reach their towns.
It's funny that denialists always leave something out. In fact, they leave EVERYTHING out, except their little cherry picked factoid that will give the wrong impression if taken out of context. Let's hope, dear reader, that you are not stupid enough to skip down that path.
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Comments: 59 ( 1 removed by Chris Wiegard )
Sidney is the only city in Australia with temperatures over 100 http://www.weatherzone.com.au/nsw/sydney/sydney
All the rest except Perth are well below 100
Its funny how you forget that we can all see the proper temperatures world wide
Hobart Tasmania Now
25.0°C http://www.weatherzone.com.au/tas/lower-derwent/hobart
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jan/07/wildfires-rage-across-australia-amid-searing-heat/?ap
Do you even try to understand the information before embarrassing yourself once again with inanities?
Please explain why you didn't understand what Chris wrote.
Meanwhile, we're still waiting for you to provide any explanation for your statements here.
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp1.htm
Death Valley has reached the 129-degree mark four more times, in 1960, 1998, 2005 and 2007. The Park Service says Death Valley's hottest summer ever was in 1996, when it had 40 days higher than 120 degrees F (49 degrees C).
The 1913 record occurred during a year of extremes for Death Valley. The weather station at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek Ranch) recorded a string of five days at 129 degrees F or above in July of that year, and on January 8, 1913, posted the record low for Death Valley, 15 degrees F (-10 degrees C).
Death Valley, California, July 10, 1913, when it reached 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius).
So what's your point Chris?
This from someone who cannot explain how anything he says is relevant to the article.
In fact, Graham, the topic of this article is the intentionally false representation by another Gather member that Alaska is somehow going into an ice age. A representation that is completely opposite of the conclusion reached by the authors of the study in which the other Gather member's article claimed to be based.
You can't seem to be bothered with understanding the points of the article, choosing instead to follow your usual habit of providing irrelevant URLs and/or material plagiarized from lobbyist sites and other blogs that you try to pass off as your own.
And even with your attempt to distract from the main point of the article you can't even make sense.
Why you continue to display your ignorance is beyond comprehension.
I saw that post. Basically, she equated Alaska with the whole of the arctic, and totally blew off the melting Greenland glaciers and melting polar sea-ice. "Ice melts in summer," sez she. "There's plenty of ice on the Arctic Ocean in winter." Well, there is ice on the Arctic Ocean in winter, but plenty of? Not so much. That is one dumb bunny there.
http://www.summitcamp.org/status/webcam/
http://www.andreassen.gl/andreassen/webcam.htm
Please explain how a webcam showing ice in a region of Greenland that is covered with nearly a mile of ice has any relevance at all to the current discussion?
Please explain why you still can't seem to grasp this simple fact despite it being explained to you many many times in language even a six-year old could understand?
Please explain why you cannot provide any actual thought, instead relying solely on irrelevant links and then counting on insinuation and innuendo to suggest things that are egregiously divorced from fact or logic.
Please explain why you cannot provide any explanation for why we should ignore 100+ years of science and rely on Op-Eds by fossil fuel funded lobbyists.
You have had many opportunities to provide substantive comment, and yet each and every time you offer nothing but links to totally unrelated information with no explanation of why you think it might be relevant to the discussion at hand, or even to the larger fact that we are warming our planet. When you aren't providing irrelevant links you're either providing information plagiarized off of lobbyist websites that you try to pass off as your own or, when you try to write something that isn't copied from others, barely comprehensible gibberish replete with talking points shown many many many times to be blatantly false. Not to mention nonsensical and self-contradictory.
One has to wonder the mentality of someone who so obviously and repeatedly embarrasses himself.
Meanwhile, the data shows that in this past year there was record sea ice melt in the Arctic, which continues the downward trend that has been going on for over three decades now (and counting).
Greenland, Antarctica ice melt speeding up, study finds, and
Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Nearing Critical ‘Tipping Point’
Australia in Summer (December-February) 2011-12
This looks like it supports your position, but... be sure and read the Tasmania segment.
Australia braces for "catastrophic" wildfire day
This is January 5
The first day in a summer of misery
January 8 (today) - International Date Line put them a day ahead.
Wildfires also are a normal as well they usually start out in the Australian bush. In Australia history the one we can relate to when we British colonized the continent we have noted that they have had wildfires and that the Australians are well adjusted to the fact that they will be having them, something that you Americans should take note of with wildfires that you have and will continue to have. You also probably do not know why these wild fires spread so quickly in Australia so I will enlighten you. The Continent of Australia is awash with Eucalyptus trees which store oil in them making the tree quite a bonfire.
Indigenous Australians have long had their own seasonal calendars, which are different from the seasonal calendar brought to Australia by my countrymen in 1788. For example, the Jawoyn, from the Northern Territory, recognize six seasons. Jiorrk, the wet season, lasts from January to February. Bungarung, the end of the rains, lasts from March to mid-April. Jungalk, the hot start of the dry period, lasts from mid-April to the end of May. Malaparr, the cooler, middle part of the dry period, lasts from June to the end of August. Worrwopmi, the humid time, lasts from September to the end of October. Wakaringding, the humid time when the first rains begin to fall, lasts from November until the end of December.
So you see its not all plain and simple down under
Aw, t'hell widdit.
It is also irrelevant to the discussion.
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp1.htm
As for its irrelevant to the discussion!!! but it was Chris not I who brought Australia into the discussion with his post try reading his post before putting foot into mouth all I am doing is showing you all that Australia has always had wildfires and always will. Now I know its very hard for you all to understand that sometimes in life crap happens and not everything is down to your mythical global worming but do try for heavens sake your all becoming increasingly embarrassing.
Wow, you don't seem to mind embarrassing yourself.
As for its irrelevant to the discussion!!! but it was Chris not I who brought Australia into the discussion with his post
Chris made an anecdotal comment about the heat in Australia, a comment that was inserted solely to show how dishonest the other Gather member's presentation was, i.e., the idiotically false assertion that Alaska was entering some "ice age" (an assertion directly opposite of the conclusion made by the study supposedly being cited).
This anecdotal comment immediately set off what is called a "fixed action pattern" (FAP), a primitive neural function in which a statement (or a dinging of a bell) triggers a mindless behavioral response. He said "Australia" and you immediately reposted a URL you saw on a blog without even bothering to try to explain why you think the incidental tidbit is relevant or disproves the point being made.
Meanwhile you completely ignore the actual substantive content of the article. Why? Because you do not have the knowledge to address it, and if you did, would see that the article correctly points out the intentionally deceit of the other writer.
try reading his post before putting foot into mouth
As has been made clear by my comments, I not only read Chris' post and the other comments, I actually understood them. Something that is clear you did not.
all I am doing is showing you all that Australia has always had wildfires and always will.
Well, duh. But that isn't particularly relevant is it? Of course not. It completely ignores the entire point related to the anecdotal mention of Australia in the first place. Your repeated insistence that some cherry picked factoid can be used to make a point while ignoring the entire body of science that makes your intended point false is, well, ridiculous and demonstrates your lack of understanding of the topic being discussed.
Now I know its very hard for you all to understand that sometimes in life crap happens and not everything is down to your mythical global worming but do try for heavens sake your all becoming increasingly embarrassing.
I assume you meant to say "warming" not "worming." But your entire paragraph demonstrates at least a couple of attributes:
1) When you aren't plagiarizing other blogs and unethically trying to pass it off as your own writing, your writing is barely comprehensible.
2) You clearly do not understand anything you are trying to talk about.
Meanwhile, 100+ years of science, massive empirical evidence, physics, nearly every climate scientist on the planet, every major scientific organization, every national academy of science around the world, and 100,000+ peer-reviewed research papers show that our burning of fossil fuels is warming our planet.
I'm sorry you feel that all of that science is "mythical" but the various conspiracy blogs, fossil fuel funded lobbyist websites, and Op-Eds in business magazines by non-scientist lawyers working for lobbying organizations are "science." That really says a lot about you.
He must be some relation to or actually is renee nal .
I think it is interesting that people who can't defend their positions resort to name-calling, and talking about people behind their backs.
Your proclivities on this site are well known. As is the fact that much of what you say is false, and the rest is intentionally designed to misrepresent.
Meanwhile, Graham still will not even attempt to support his statements, largely because he knows they are ridiculously false. Not to mention usually plagiarized from blogs (the ones that aren't plagiarized are easy to identify because they are barely comprehensible).
It's one thing to get the facts wrong, it's yet another to do so repeatedly and intentionally.
As is the fact that much of what you say is false, and the rest is intentionally designed to misrepresent. Would you like to give an example? Just one?
Look, modern climatology is not going to change the minds of the Dans of this world. He will die still mouthing the mantra sure it is a bit warmer but it's just a touch of weather. The best we can look for is for most of us to accept the fact that we have created a big problem, and that the problem will keep getting bigger until we address it. Unanimity aint gonna happen, because it is against the world view of many to think that humans actually have the ability to screw up anything as big as a planet. like, only God could do something that massive. When slavery ended, there were still plenty of people who missed it and thought that ending it was a terrible mistake. Moving on happened anyway.
Click on my icon to the left and go to my comments, even though Chris deleted it it will still be in my comments.
Indeed, Chris. This past year blew away the record Arctic ice melt, continuing the downward spiral that has been going on for over 30 years now.
And this last year was the warmest on record for the contiguous United States. By a massive amount. Globally the temperature continues to be hot, with 9 of the 10 hottest years on record occurring in the last dozen years.
NOAA, NASA, NDIC, MetOffice, etc, etc, etc - every actual scientific research organization and virtually every actual climate scientist and 100+ years of data tell us that the planet is warming and that the main cause is our massive emissions of carbon to the atmosphere and oceans from the burning of fossil fuels.
Who says otherwise? Lobbyist lawyers, conspiracy bloggers, anonymous bloggers with blatantly dishonest graphs citing fossil fuel funded non-science and pseudonymous bloggers.
There is the science, and then there is the dishonest denial of the science.
Don't talk to me about the ozone layer
Ain't so much of anything these days, even the air
They're running out of rhino's, what do I care?
Let's hear for the dolphin let's hear it for the trees
Ain't runnin' out of nothin' in my deep freeze
It's causal entertaining, we aim to please
Dire Straits "My Parties"
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/08/us/extreme-weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
YUP- the 2012 temperature average for the lower 48 USA broke the previous record by a FULL DEGREE fahrenheit. It was also three degrees over the annual temperature average for the 20th century for the lower 48.
Sorry if you thought I made something up. You do understand what a "google" is, right?
Whoops, I just gave them some ammo. Wait for it........ :)
Key point - "preparing for more extreme heat."
Not just for one year. Because they know that Australia is likely to see more and more temperature and dry extremes as global warming continues to heat the planet.
Similarly, the US military is already developing strategies for the national security issues caused by a warming planet.
And even the oil companies are racing to exploit the more open access to Arctic undersea reserves; open access created by the increasingly record levels of ice melt during the summer that, ironically, are caused by the burning of the fossil fuels they are racing each other to extract.
We are way past time to take action.
They are going to go up. People procreate.