"It's a sign of good things to come," she said.

No...it's a sign that everything is out of wack because of something called GLOBAL WARMING!!! Good things to come? I think not. Get ready for some major climate changes down the road. So, for now...

Keep your blinders on, enjoy the early spring and don't even think about the future...

When those monster tornados come every year, do you think people will eventually understand global warming, or do you think they'll just forget life wasn't always hell and keep falling for the fossil-fuelist propaganda?

Remember, we are only at 0.8-0.9 degrees Celsius, and by business as usual we could hit 6 degrees warming by 2100, and by God, we have the carbon to do it (between the coal and the unconventional tar sands/natural gas, enough for 5000 gT carbon). If you think this is weird, wait until we're all dead! Won't that be weird! As long as we get to pretend Al Gore is wrong and no one enacts a carbon tax!

If this is global warming, I'll have seconds! Shoveling to shorts weather in a week and cheap utility bills to boot! I also highly doubt that global warming is what will bring the end of mankind so i'm going to go have a beer on the patio ;)

I'm thrilled you like beer. I do too.

Now, outside of opinions about beer, you don't seem to know what you are talking about, and don't seem to have any qualifications to render an opinion about what this means, nor do you refer to any statements or research by those who do know what they are talking about.

Why don't you have a cigarette, too? I mean, it's only those alarmist scientists and doctors that say smoking's a bad idea.

steve, it may be nice for you but it's 84 here. by summer if that continues it'll be over 110 for a while. not the norm and not nice at all.

It's ludicrously warm across the front range of the Rockies. I haven't fired up the heat in almost a week and it's only March! Didn't get much snow last winter either. This is not going to be a good summer.

Maybe, though I remember last summer being cooler than normal. So maybe, though the weather is warmer than usual now, the summer won't be that drastic.

The Colorado snow-water-equivalent is 74% of average for this time of year, and we are having near 60 degree weather in the northern CO mountain area where I live. I'm lovin' it! By the end of last year's snows, our snow-water-equivalent was at 250% of average and many areas were flooded during snow run-off season.

Despite our below average water numbers this year, we will be just fine because of last year's overage. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to borrow Steve's idea and go have a beer on my patio. This weather is awesome!

Just wait until the Rockies no longer store snow due to high temperatures. Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and Southern California will be one big unlivable desert.

85 is too hot. I'll take 70 but no more in March. In the long term, it's worrisome. Have to admit, being on crutches this winter, not having to shovel ANY snow at all (never happened to me in last 20 yrs in Boston) has been a singular coincidental blessing.

tfnj, don't know where you live but i remember last summer having the record set for days over 100 in several states plus a drought in texas.

I grew up around Boston and I can remember the last time it was this warm in March, we got nailed with three feet of snow on April 1.

Yeah, just last year we had plenty of snow at this time. And when it snowed this past October, I told my wife that it was a sign of a really bad winter, and, against her wishes, bought a snow blower..

TFNJ.....Just wanted to thank all of you who bought snow plowers and plows. You saved me a lot of shoveling this year !

And this is exactly the reason I gave my wife when she gave me the "I Told You So" look. I said I took one for the team, and prevented us from getting socked in snow this year. Thats right, I'm to blame for global warming.. :)

Its someone elses turn next year.

Ain't no such thang, Tim. Wha ah thank its naaaace to have warm weatha. God willin' we'll all have a naaace warm weatha all yar round, don't chall agree?

I know, Jesus would never give us a world we could destroy. Unless we let gay people get married, of course...

Good point you bring up Tim; once the pattern of (generally) above normal temperatures is firmly established, once EXTREME weather aberrations (like the many winter tornadoes we had) become even more common, expect our lunatic fundamentalist fringe to declare the cause. Somebody 'must have offended THEIR God'. Without fail the TV-evangelist money-changers and right-wing talking heads will blame 'those uppidity women', atheists, liberals, gays and 'infidels' teaching evolution (the way the do without fail after 9-11 and after Katrina).

The pattern is predicatable: that of statistically supported adverse climate changes, as is the mob-inciting pattern of scape-goating a convenient whipping-boy...

Hey, it worked for the bumble-thumping hysterics in the middle-ages when faced with the plague...

Or we can just EVOLVE to handle the newer climate eh? eh? for you non religious folk. So either way you look at it, we will be just fine. Time to have that second beer on the patio. And Tim, i do smoke too ;) The way i figure it, i will be off this rock before it really hits the fan!

Big of you, Steve. No children? Or you don't like the one's you have?

I'm with Steve, at least in being happy I'll be long gone before climate change kills my way of life, but not for the same reasons he is (presumably). I feel there's nothing I can do to stop it. I recycle, drive a small car, support environmental issues, but what difference does it make? Who cares what I think? I feel like I'm being carried along on the backs of lemmings as they plunge over the cliff. It doesn't matter what I do, I will share their fate.

(Or I would if I wasn't joining Steve in the afterlife.)

Even if the climate just change, our children will adapt to that environment, just as we did to ours. This isn't a global killer.

A lot of people feel about 'let others adopt' the same way when the go to the crapper. They mess up the seat, splatter all over, don't flush and leave a stink something fierce. "Hey, it isn't gonna kill anyone!"

No. no. Not the same scenario.

Look 10 billion people by 2050 are going to have to deal with the consequences of our decisions today. Right now half of us have nukes. How many then?
When our species last adapted to big changes, there were 9,900,000,000 fewer of us, and we didn't depend on agriculture and we didn't have nukes.

Why decide to just see how we suffer when we get there? Why not use our goddam heads? Just so we can avoid putting in a carbon tax? That's kind of ideologically fanatical.

Apparently, Tim H.'s favorite movie is 'Soylent Green.'

I was wondering when the Denialist shock-troopers would arrive.

Thought-provoking. So if a day in June has a temperature lower than a day in April there isn't any such thing as summer?

So you say the globe isn't warming? Haven't you heard about BEST?

Also, Mr Statistics, you have to go back to 1930 to find a warmer February. How far back do you think you'll have to go to find a warmer March? 1830?

After 2010 was the warmest year on record?

After the last decade was the warmest ever recorded?

After all of this was predicted in Congressional testimony by Dr James Hansen in 1988, and after President Johnson was briefed on the possibility in 1964?

Deniers will go through great lengths quoting isolated statistical aberrations from 1930 or 1812 if they have to. The PATTERN and the SOLID NUMBERS, the mathematical equations and graphs mean nothing. After all a 'denier' (simpleton resistant to 'needed change') needs justification for any and all bad behavior, whatever it is. He will tell you to your face about 'somebody he knew who smoked all his life and died in his sleep stone-old'... That's all the logic and 'reality' that matters!

After all, the LOTTERY works on the principle to have a simpleton DENY REALITY, expect the most favorable outcome, despite the OVERWHELMING odds and statistical logic that tells us you are more likely to die from lightning, shark-attack and murder all in one... hence it is called 'the DUMB (simple) PERSON's VOLUNTARY TAX'.

I may still play one day, but expect nothing! But in the REAL world: plants that would normally be dead from the cold or still sleeping here in Tennessee are sprouting now or started blooming a month ago in winter... and spring is still a week away... it is as winter never came! But the tornado sirens were going multiple times throughout January!

So a link to a conservative blog makes this a fact?

We haven't had a winter here at all. My windows have been open for months and months - it's downright balmy. I miss winter.

Don't tell economykiller above, he'll decide you are doctoring your records and want to subpoena all your e-mails.

We can stop it. We will stop it. Wouldn't you rather leave your children a livable planet?

Good point Truthhurts!!! Everyday is a blessing!!

And if we don't put in a carbon tax now and stop this insanity, when we count our blessings we won't have to count very high!

Lee, for us to deal with this, we have to think coherently. Anyone who has intellectual integrity will separate out the issues: 1) Is it happening? 2) Is it us? 3) What are the consequences? 4) What to do?

It seems you, like all conservatives, currently, just skip to 4), don't like what you see, and then just hop all around all the steps plucking out things you think are wrong in the chain, motivated by distaste for 4) and with no real intent to go step by step. If you don't resolve step 1) and 2), you'll never get anywhere, and worse, you will be dangerously wrong.

Tim - you made my point perfectly. The only "distaste" for 4, is for your 4 - because you, in fact, want to force your conclusions as to the the first three steps down our throats, and then blame American conservatives for global warming. I am saying, if I spot you the first three, say you are right, then you should abandon the joy of blaming your American political opponents and focus on the primary, potential, causes. Do you understand?

If you spot me the first three, then you would HAVE to come up with your own solution that would meet the requirements of the science, the simple physics of it. Because there is no acceptable conservative solution to the Right (which is crazy, because using a tax to price in the externality would be the simplest, best way to let the free market do it's magic) the Right call all of the science a global enviro-Marxist hoax, and contests points 1-4 without integrity. The Right MUST come up with a real solution, or it must accept the carbon tax. It cannot go back and contest points 1-3 because it doesn't like the only real answer. That would be dishonest, lazy and EXTREMELY DANGEROUS to mankind, and to science, on of humanity's great achievements, and something Western culture feels, justifiably, a great deal of pride for having helped, or entirely, created.

Do you understand? If you spot 1-3, you cannot go back and rehashed settled science about 1-3 when you get angry about 4, or you threaten the lives of your children and mine.

No, here's the problem- Carbon.

That's it. That's the problem.

And global warming deniers are wrong. Climate scientists are right. That's why the Earth is unmistakably warming. As predicted.

Got it?

tim,

i guess that is what's wrong with this country. nobody wants to fundamentally take one for the team, even if in the long run everybody is a winner. everyone always has to be right. no middle ground to come to for compromise, even if everybody comes out a winner from the compromise.

Gee, Tim H., if you weren't so shortsighted, nay, outright wrong/lying about the problem being carbon, I might be inclined to your point of view. THE MOST INFLUENTIAL "greenhouse gas" is water vapor. Do they pay you by the word, or by the post, to push this pro-carbon-tax/cap-and-trade agenda. Why do you assert that AGW "deniers" cherry-pick information, discarding whatever doesn't agree with their pre-determined outcomes, when that is exactly what the other side of the debate is doing (too)? In case it hadn't occurred to you, climate is a whole lot bigger a picture than you give it credit for being when you say dumb things like, "...Carbon. That's it. That's the problem... Got it?"

You seem like the D-bag from the "Kill-a-Watt" commercial during the (completely contrived) CA energy crisis.

Diatribe, I am science literate and I have 3 children I brought into this world, with the intent to leave them a world inhabitable and worth inhabiting.

Now, water vapor. Nah, ya think? Wow, shouldn't climate scientists have figure that out?

Oh, yeah, they have. Starting with Arrhenius in 1896.

Think is, water vapor falls out of the air on average in three days.

Carbon dioxide will be in the air about 10,000 years.

In short, the amount of water vapor is a function of the avergae temperature, which is primarily affected by CO2. It is, in effect, a significant positive feedback. Not a forcing.

aurunner- what the hell do you mean? What the hell is the compromise? What are conservatives offering? Nothing but paranoid conspiracy, and if you ever try to get at the problem obliquely, you will 1) get nowehere near 80% drop in emissions in time to avoid the worst, and 2) not get anywhere because these nuts will see what you're getting at and freaking lose MORE of their minds- they are crazy, not stupid. Didn't you think more efficient lightbulbs made sense?

I did. Bush did. These psychos did, so they went apepoop on it.

yeah those more efficient light bulbs also contain mercury and need to be disposed of properly. how do you think that is going to come back and bite us in the ass? I'm sure everyone will recycle those when they burn out.

And instead of blaming the conservatives or liberals or cows that fart and release methane... why don't you convince the masses to change their ways? there is nothing about global warming that says only the government can prevent it and you can only rely on the government to do something about it.

You can't "convince the masses to change their ways."

That's insane. You have to put a serious price on carbon, at the well-head or the mine, that equals the damage it's emissions does to all of us. It's called "pricing in the externality." It is the only way to solve the "tragedy of the commons".
And yes, it's a tax. And yes, only the government can do it. And yes, that is why the Right will lose the planet rather than lose this argument.

We need to double our energy production, and cut to one tenth our carbon emission, from an economy almost wholly dependent on fossil-based energy production. Government puts in the tax. The free market then solves the problem. You're completely fooling yourself if you think there is any other way. So far, I haven't heard how re-cycling the newspaper, or bringing my own grocery bags is going to cut out 80 million tons of carbon emission per day.

Or do you have some idea I've never heard? Or are you pretending to care, and will you now talk about how carbon taxes are impossible, just so oil companies can make another $100 billion profit this year?

if relying on the government is the only way.... then you and i both know we are screwed. dems and repubs are in bed with big business and that's certainly something no one can deny.

We're screwed if we give up. The government won WWII and the Cold War, with the same Democrats, and Republicans, and big business. I'm not planning on lying down and dying. Sure as hell I'm not planning to let my children drown because I feel down about government.

Does "science-literate" mean the same thing as intellectually dishonest? You refuse to acknowledge the bigger picture? Or you are paid by some agency (read: of which you are an agent)? If your agenda is as you've stated, then you have difficulty with jumping to conclusions? What does the phrase "warmest on record" actually mean? Are you sure you haven't placed undue faith in the infallibility of records kept only about 160 years (and for how many of them accurately?) of recorded data? How does your data explain tropical plants growing in the (modern day) United Kingdom? Or do you discard that because it disagrees with your politics?

You see, there is not even any evidence that global warming has somehow been accelerated, relative to the last time the planet warmed in similar fashion. And, Tim H., Our climate is largely controlled by three things (simplified) water, atmosphere, and the sun. I know it gets REALLY difficult to prove the pseudo science of AGW (largely a product of political posturing and the need for politicians to look like they are "doing something about the problem") when you put the hydrologic cycle back into the equation...

All that is neither here, nor there. I am neither a proponent nor a denier of AGW and it's larger implications. However, any good dog knows not to $hit where it eats; that's just common sense.

Since you are so obviously convinced that your point of view is absolute truth, which, being static, will necessarily disagree with reality, which, unlike truth, is in a constant state of fluctuation, please provide the evidence that supports your claim (the problem is carbon). And don't say manbearpig... I mean, global warming. By all means. And if you could include the hydrologic cycle in your argument, well, that would be just swell. Will you also please explain why things like methane and sulfer dioxide don't figure into your assessment of "the problem."

Or you can just shout me down with more drivel that is totally irrelevant to the question that I asked... it'll be a lot like school. HINT: I'll have more respect for you if you say you don't know the answer...

Oh yeah, about the tropical plants-Great Britain... That was in the middle ages...

BTW, TIM H., You still haven't answered any questions, in spite of your histrionics... Must be the 'ignore' button.

Are you not paying ANY attention?

She's not wrong in saying we should enjoy the weather. Relax

@ Tim, I do pay attention, Its call La Nina !!!!!!! A normal cycle !!!!!! So again just enjoy !!!!!!

I'm not even saying that. I'm just saying weather we have a problem or not, I'm gonna enjoy my life and the weather. F the globe and its weather.

my reply is to Tim H.... And agree with you TFNJ 100% enjoy!!!!!!

Oh I know. I was just making it clear to Tim that even if there was a problem, nothing wrong with enjoying the weather. Got to take life in strides some times.

No, Kitty, it's not a normal cycle. We have a problem. A really big problem. A solvable problem. You just need to get on board.

tim, how is it not a normal cycle? I've heard of la Nina and el nino long before i heard about global warming or even the ozone hole in the 90's.

i'm not disagreeing with your position, that we need to reduce emissions, but to say la nina we are in is not normal then why not back it up with some proof.

Look at Hansen and Sato,

Not yet published, but pretty straight-forward. Since the significant warming of the last three decades, anomalous temps of greater than 3 standard deviations have been measured over 10% of the Earth's surface in any year, whereas previously they covered much less than 1%.

Read the paper. Do the math.

OH. Is it not yet published due to needing to be peer-reviewed? Nevermind. You don't have any real information, but you ARE very convinced.

Abe Lincoln mentioned that in a speech one time...

The only Hansen and Soto I found was a year old draft, with no data references more current than 2005. Couldn't possibly account for the flat global temperatures since then. Maybe that's why we haven't seen publication.

pesky peer review

Remember -- Rush the junkie say global warming is junk science. and of course -- rush the junkie is an expert on climate.

can't enjoy it when you are facing severe drought conditions, no crops for lack of snow melt, irrigation and feed costs that force us to sell off livestock. the drought last year was mostly the deep south and texas but this year it extends all the way to the canadian border. if we don't have enough water then places like phoenix, las vegas, s. cali. won't be getting the water they rely on from the colorado. many rivers like the cimmaron and rio grande out of our state will likely go dry before mid summer due to the record low snow pack. everyone will feel the pain of this record weather be it those of us facing drought and those who face in the grocery stores when food prices go through the roof.

Oy. Enjoy the food production failure, tornados, flash-floods, and fatal heatwaves?

Only conservatives would forget these come with global warming.

Minor human inconvenience. You rich liberal elite Kennedy's might have to move your oceanfront homes inland just a bit. Wild life don't seem to mind. Temperatures were much higher and weather conditions much more severe when the dinosaurs roamed and vegetation was abundant.

@ Tim H.

Those of us who recognize that science is constantly contradicting itself because it is wrong a lot of the time (as in the case of global warming), we will enjoys this unusual variation in weather. For folks that don't (as in yourself) those who dwell on disaster, let sorrow be your master.