Extreme summer warming possible by 2080
The blazing hot sun over Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
The sea surface temperatures in the Pacific change from year to year, affecting the atmosphere. Photo:
Sarah Camp
A recent study has suggested that we can expect summers to get warmer in this century.
The study suggests that, by the 2080s, summertime temperatures in cities such as Chicago and Atlanta could hover above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, especially if the frequency of rainfall is below average.
Barry Lynn: When the sun comes in and heats the ground in our present day situation, a certain fraction of that energy then just goes back out to space. But in the future, when carbon dioxide concentrations are higher than they are today, a smaller fraction of that energy will escape to space.
That’s Barry Lynn of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. According to Dr. Lynn, increasing amounts of greenhouse gases could lead to changes in atmospheric circulation that could reduce rainfall in already hot summers. And less rainfall leads to still higher temperatures on the ground.
Barry Lynn: But if you have a forecast for fewer rainy days, then the ground actually warms up and then that energy is not able to escape back to space because the carbon dioxide concentrations are larger than they are today, and you can end up with much hotter, and even extreme temperatures.
Our thanks today to NASA: explore, discover, understand.
Accept human–caused global warming? ‘No choice.’
Are Americans ready to believe in global warming?
Scientist: ‘Warm spells’ due to global warming
Why global warming has left me dumbfounded a blog post by Deborah Byrd.
What you can do to help reduce greenhouse gases:
Top 50 Things To Do To Stop Global Warming from globalwarming–facts.info
Things you can do today to reduce Global Warming from Global Warming International Center
What you can do about global warming from Union of Concerned Scientists
Climate Change Solutions: What You can Do Right Now from Earthday Network
Our thanks today to:
Dr. Israel–Tzvi (Barry) Lynn
Institute of Earth Sciences
Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel
And the summers in 2080 could be much colder than they are now. We cannot accurately predict the weather next week, much less eight decades hence. There is no data set I have seen that is predictive of the climate. There is no evidence to support dangerous global warming.
The one constant in Earth climate is constant change. We don’t cause it and we cannot prevent it. One thing is for sure, though, man has shown the ability to adapt.
That’s just ridiculous. Mankind does cause change to the earth, and weather. Tell it to the do-do or the carrier pidgeon that man does not cause extinction of species. It’s not disputed anymore by any reputable scientist, man is causing global warming. It’s time to look at options, other than fossil fuels, for our energy needs. Right now nuclear and solar look very promising. America needs to get off the addiction to fossil fuels and oil, for environmental and political reasons.
Steve,
Every animal causes some effect by definition and its very existence. I must say that in the case of the carrier pigeon, the extreme cold of their last winter killed more of them in the southern United States than man ever did. As a critically depensated species, they could no longer make it as a species. In general though, did you know that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed were extinct before man ever came along?
I will stand I what I said before, man has had little or no effect on climate. THe earth has been much warmer than it is now (check out the medieval optimum) and it has been much colder. Carbon dioxide levels have been much higher and much lower than they are now.
I think humans need some sort of guilt to exist. It is not climatalogical, it is psychological.
Dear Ben and Steve,
In the 27 July 2007 issue of SCIENCE MAGAZINE, none other than its editor, Donald Kennedy, proclaimed that, with respect to the contrived, 30-year political controversy regarding climate change, the game is over.
It seems to me that we are well served by focussing public attention on the factors of industrialization and economic globalization now overspreading the surface of Earth. An infinitely expanding global economy in a finite world the size of the one God blesses us to inhabit does appear to be a major player in global warming.
Can we maintain viable conditions for life as we know it AND for a successful world economy without the adequate resources and ecosystem services provided by a healthy planet?
Thanks,
Steve
Please read the following and comment, Steve.
Climate Change: The Real Peril
Not by Fire but by Ice
THE NEXT ICE AGE – NOW!
Web www.iceagenow.comDiscover What Killed the Dinosaurs . . . and Why it Could Soon Kill Us
3 August 07
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Generate income from your website with Google Adsense. . . Get targeted ads on your site with Google AdSenseClimate Change: The Real Peril
by Philip V. Brennan
.
1 Aug 07 – “They used to call it global warming but cooler heads appear to have decided to hedge their bets and re-christen the problem “climate change” a description that covers all kinds of eventualities.
“After all, if the warnings that the world is getting colder instead of warmer (actually it’s doing both) turn out to be accurate, they can claim to have been on the side of the angels no matter what happens.
“The battle however, still rages. On one side you have the likes of Sir David King, who served as chief scientist in Tony Blair’s government, making the absurd claim that global warming is a greater threat to mankind than terrorism.
“On the other side there are scientists such as Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, who said of Al Gore’s movie about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which he refused to watch, “Don’t make me throw up, It is not science. It is not true.”
“Personally I couldn’t care less which side is right. What I do care about is where Mother Nature is leading us, and baby, it isn’t paradise on earth.
“Look at it this way. Right now we are watching places like Texas and Great Britain being drowned by seemingly never-ending multiple inches of rainfall and the raging floods the rainfall creates. Recently some areas in the United States have been devastated by tornadoes of unimaginable destructive capacity. Last winter snowfall in some areas reached levels as much as 13 or 14 feet high.
“Taking into consideration the fact that an inch of rain amounts to a foot of snow, you can get an idea of what’s going to happen when all that precipitation falls as white stuff next winter.
“Mr., Gore and his minions keep telling us that the polar regions are warming. They fail to mention that the snow pack in the northern regions of Canada keeps growing and providing the medium for those bitter cold blasts of frigid air coming south in the winter, and the cold air being experienced right now in much of the northern U.S.
“They just ignore all that and keep chanting the mantra that the polar ice is melting and we’re all going to be barbecued unless we surrender most of our liberties to the Marxist commissars in the U.N.
“The present interglacial period has lasted about 12,000 years. If the history of this planet’s climate over millions of years is any guide, we are about to enter a new ice age. History tells us our time is about up.
“Studies such as those done by Genevieve Woillard in 1978 showed that the transition period between interglaciation and glaciation lasts about 175 years, with the final 20 years a period of increased violence.
“It is that period of time that must concern us because all of the signs point to the fact that we are living in its final phase. And it is that vital fact that is being obscured by the debate surrounding climate change. When we should be facing the unpleasant fact that the world we know is about to vanish in a maelstrom of violence, we are engaged in a meaningless struggle that blinds us to the nasty fate Mother Nature has in store for us.
“What we will see is what should concern us — a huge increase in storms becoming more and more violent, monster tornadoes that devastate large areas creating unimaginable wreckage in their wake, more volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of increasing violence and massive amounts of precipitation causing floods and snowfall towering far above us.
“Doubt it? Look around you, It’s happening now, and getting worse with each passing year. Spring and fall are slowly disappearing, winters last longer and summers get shorter. Then one day in the very near future, in the winter much of the northern tier of states will be buried in mountains of snow that do not melt for months, while more and more snow piles on top of them.
“In view of this reality, the hysteria over global warming engendered by the likes of Al Gore and his fellow Marxist Mikhail Gorbachev is nothing short of criminal. When we should be contemplating what awaits us and how we shall deal with it both spiritually and materially, we are being blinded by a false dichotomy over global climate that ignores the reality of what it actually happening to the earth and its people.
“If I had to guess, I’d say the next five years will be the worst in all the history of mankind, with each year more terrible than the last. After that?”
Oremus. Deus exaudi nos et clamor meus ad te veniat. (Look it up.)
(Would someone like to tell me – Robert Felix – what the above words mean?)Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist and World War II Marine who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s.
See entire article at:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/7/31/154322.shtml
Thanks to Peter Pesola, Phillip Brennan, Donald Leenknegt, and Tim Engman for this link
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Dear Benjamin Napier,
Thanks for your comments above, even though they appear to me as words from a denialist of what is known to be real about the world we inhabit.
While I agree with you in recognizing that the world we inhabit is constantly changing, it also appears to me that the seemingly endless growth of human numbers and enterprise is approaching a point in history when the unbridled growth of certain human activities becomes unsustainable on a planet the size of Earth.
Regardless of how long the not-so-great leaders of the predominant culture choose to worship and ultimately prize the endless accumulation of wealth and power, and despite their perverse use of human intelligence so as to mimic the uncontrolled growth behaviors of the cancer cell and the head-in-the-sand attitude of the ostrich with regard to new scientific evidence, surely it is not too late to more meaningfully deploy intelligence by embracing the best available good science, by limiting the explosive expansion of the global economy and by making other necessary, more reality-oriented behavior changes for the sake of the saving the world as we know it for our children and coming generations.
Sincerely,
Steve
Dear Benjamin Napier,
Given the recognizable, understandable scientific research of the primary “human factor” that appears as an evident driving force resulting in looming global challenges, already visible on the far horizon, would it be sensible to suppose the activities of the human species that are giving rise to certain global problems such as global warming are subject to necessary change, the kind of human behavior change routinely derived from the awareness of new science?
I believe human beings can solve whatsoever the problems we have created by thinking, judging, and willing to do things differently together.
Thanks again,
Steve
Dear Ben,
Would you agree the first time humanity fails to solve the problems on Earth that WE create could be the last time we fail? At least to this point in time, it looks to me as if humankind has an unblemished record of achievements.
Of course, past prosperity is no guarantee of favorable outcomes in the future; however, I am placing my faith in humankind.
As you are likely aware, quite a large number of people, inside and outside of science, have suggested that the human experiment of the 21st century reminds them of the first and last voyage of the Titanic.
If, indeed, humankind now finds itself in command of a huge ship, the “Century XXI Human Experiment,” and also has good, virtually irrefutable scientific evidence that this ship could soon strike an ‘iceberg’, already visible on the far horizon, would you agree that reasonable and sensible people immediately open discussions regarding a change in course?
Or is humankind better served by its experts maintaining a code of silence and its many leaders accelerating the ship’s speed, reinforcing it by making the ship more gigantic, and staying the current course….steady as it goes?
As ever,
Steve
Real smart thread… It gets that hot in Atlanta now when there is not a lot of rain. OMG.