E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
AP
A flock of geese rise up from bare grass in Chicago on Sunday.
Chicago residents have managed to avoid one winter chore almost altogether this year: shoveling. The city perched on the shores of Lake Michigan, ever braced for a harsh winter, is set to break a decades-old record for lack of snow.
On Wednesday, assuming forecasts hold, the city will have its 320th day without an inch of snow, breaking a record set in the winter of 1939-1940, according to Accuweather. A dusting in Chicago on Sunday brought the snow total for the whole winter to a meager 1.3 inches.
"This is a wake-up call of how we may have to adapt," said Brant Miller, chief meteorologist at NBC's Chicago affiliate, referring to the process of climate change that contributes to the unusual weather. "It’s not going to be business as usual going forward."
Chicago winters typically produce 11.5 inches by this time of the year, NBC Chicago reported. Wednesday started out sunny and in the 30s, and was predicted to reach a high of 43 degrees, with no precipitation in the forecast, according to Accuweather.
The lack of snow this season is due in part to a split jet stream that has pushed storm systems around the city -- to the north and south.
"We have this pattern now… The cold air is bottled up up north of Chicago, and the moisture stays to the south," he said.
Also, temperatures have been balmy, at least by Chicago standards. The season’s lowest reading so far this winter was 10 degrees, still far above the average winter low of minus 9 degrees. On Tuesday, the temperature hovered around 40-45 degrees, and temperatures are expected to rise into the 50s later in the week.
2012 is warmest year ever for US
The warmer weather has meant more rain than snow in the Chicago area, including nearly 2 inches of rain in the run-up to Christmas.
Although a mild winter may be a relief for many, it can be a disappointment for others, such as those who plow snow for a living or snowmobiling enthusiasts.
Some of the longer-term implications of mild temperatures and lack of moisture may include a continued decline in the level of Lake Michigan, which Miller said is already two feet below average. When the lake does not freeze over, as is the case this year, the water evaporates more readily.
Lack of snow also could further impact the navigability of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, including the Illinois River, which are key conduits for grain and other goods in the Midwest.
More content from NBCNews.com:
- Conn. politician apologizes after saying Giffords should 'stay out of my towns'
- 'Please save us': Teens feared to have fallen through lake ice
- Cops: Fingernail DNA helps catch woman's killer 28 years later
- Teen in crude video about alleged Ohio rape not involved, lawyer says
- New survey helps US companies prove their 'vet friendly' claims
- Oil tanker hits San Francisco's Bay Bridge
- Lottery winner fatally poisoned day after collecting winnings, death ruled homicide
- California man says he can drive in carpool lane with corporation papers
- Supreme Court lets embryonic stem cell research go forward
Leave a Comment:
For years, the Elites of the West have cranked up the myth of Man Made Global Warming as a means first and foremost to control the lives and behaviors of their populations. Knowing full well that their produce in China and sell in the West model and its consequent spiral downward in wages and thus standards of living, was unsustainable, the elites moved to use this new "science" to guilt trip and scare monger their populations into smaller and more conservatives forms of living. In other words, they coasted them into the poverty that the greed and treason of those said same elites was already creating in their native lands.
What better way to staunch protests at worsening economic and life conditions than to make it feel like an honourable job/duty of the people to save "Gia". At the same time, they used this "science" as new pagan religion to further push out the Christianity they hate and despise and most of all, fear? Gia worship, the earth "mother", has been pushed in popular culture oozing out of the West for a better part of the past 1.5 decades. This is a religion replete with an army of priests, called Government Grant Scientists.
Various groups have fought back. This is including Russian hackers, who published a huge database of UK government, scientific and university emails depicting the fixing of data to sell Global Warming, er Climate Change (as if it never changed on its own). And while taking hit after hit, the beast, like Al Qaida, will not die. As a matter of fact, the beast is on a steady come back, as it is quite useful during the down times recession. The US alone spends $7 billion each year on warming "studies", which is, in truth, nothing but a huge money laundering operation, as no real science is conducted and vapid alarmist reports the only product generated.
Amongst the newest claims of pending disasters, is a cry that icepacks are now melting at three times the rate of the 1990s, even though there has not been any significant warming in the past 20 years. Greenland's icepack melt off, has been linked to volcanic activity under the ice, heating it. Must be the magmamen and their SUVs. These facts, however, do not faze the Gia crowd and their Elite/Governmental backers. The fact that a super storm hit the NE US is also being played as evidence of GW. Thank God that before GW no such things ever happened. How are they to explain that Russia and Eastern Europe are projected to have the coldest winter in 20 years? Oh, but I doubt my Western readers are even aware of that.
Now, with their economies in a spiral of debt laden, non-manufacturing recession (if not out and out depression), the Elites, who sense they are loosing their grip or toe hold on key economic regions outside their home regions, are once again calling out their inquisitors of Global Warming and sending them towards the developing world.
The first salvo has been fired by a British Warming dandy named Lord Nicholas Stern of Brantford, who as an academic at Whitehall, has made a career and quite a bit of money off of this scam. Lord Stern, a former World Bank chief economist and author of the landmark Stern review of the economics of climate change, was a close associate of Gordon Brown and the Leftists, who with the Tory counterparts and in parallel to the American Democrats/Republicans set up the grand and self destructive economic schemes that have plunged their own nations and many many others into the abyss of poverty.
The good Lord Stern, in commentary on why countries such as Russia, China, India and Brazil, in other words, the BRICs, have to pony up cash and depress their own growth, made this statement for the Guardian paper: "It's a brutal arithmetic - the changing structure of the world's economy has been dramatic. That is something developing countries will have to face up to,"
His premise is that even if you take out the deindustrialized West, run away Global Warming will not stop due to the industrialized world. Its now all the fault of those raising themselves up for the destruction of the world, from the phantom joke of GW. Lord Stern tried to assure that the opening salvo was not a salvo, by stating: "I am not pointing the finger at the developing world, just looking at what is necessary. I am not accusing or proposing, just calculating what is needed [to meet scientific estimates of the emissions cuts needed to avoid dangerous levels of climate change]". More like a calculated accusation. After all, this is not some light weight of the GIA cult, but the movement's chief economist who enjoyed the ear of the UK government: a perfect tool of the Western Elites.
Expect the cries to get louder and more shrill in the months to follow.
By Stanislav Mishin
Mike-bunch'O numbers, that has to be the stupidest thing I will read all year. Thanks for getting that out of the way!
For hundreds of years, scientists have studied the physical and chemical properties of atoms and molecules - including those that absorb IR radiation (i.e., greenhouse gases).
This is basic science, Mike. I've absolutely no idea how your post refutes empirical data that stretches back centuries. But conspiracy theories have no place in science.
Your manifesto reads like the Unibomber's writings. Get a grip, man. Global warming isn't real to you? If anything, the scientists have been ultra slow to react to this crisis. When it stops raining all together in the plain states, you just might think something should be done? The dust bowl was man made. What makes you think global warming isn't? Also, the dust bowl did not prompt action until the skies above Washington D.C. turned orange and law makers realized what they were seeing was once Oklahoma. Expect the cries to get louder all right... but don't expect it to get louder until it gets much much hotter, and hurricanes hit as often as thunderstorms once rolled in.
Have you ever heard of the phrase "Boiling a frog"? If you put a frog in a pan of water and slowly turn up the heat, he never jumps out, and ends up dying right there as the water is brought to a boil. You are like that frog... never realizing the slow rise in temperature, doomed to cook without taking the slightest evasive action to save your sorry butt.
Think the Midwest can't dry up? Come on out to California, Nevada or Utah. There's millions of acres of dry lake bed I'd like to show you.
I actually couldn't read it all. I don't hate myself quite enough.
I did like, however, that apparently science is a new pagan religion
Yay Internet. Now any kook can effortlessly disseminate nonsense to the public. Who could have predicted the mass production of idiocy?
this is how the tea partier-types respond to any news that flies in the face of their religious, paranormal fantasies. They BLOW UP and write huge volumes of OUTRAGE that THE LEFT is controlling science, research, and scientific findings are just some sort of political crap.
You're so full of $#*%. Now I remember why I ignore you. However, if you are going to use the ancient term for Earth, it's "Gaia".
Bwahahahahahahahah,,,, funny!
Mike, for God's sake, get help. or better yet, get a life, if I tried to type that much, my fingers would fall off.
Only 2% of scientists deny global warming.......thanks for the nice try.
Next time, perhaps fewer words.
I live in the NW and would love to share our winter with Chicago...
I'm so glad I didn't waste my time reading post #1
Thanks for the heads up people.
The Great Lakes have a double whammy going for them,
and
But, we have a lot of beach now on the west side of Lake Michigan!
For hundreds of years scientists have been recording and analyzing green house effects, WOW what a statement since most of your secret technologies have really been around for about 50 yrs. I would like to see your atmosphere CO2 studies say just 1 hundred years ago let alone the hundreds you proclaim. just because YOU think your self as a physicist doesn't make it so. you SHOWED me NO proof just liberal BS as usual.
How come this event wasn't a wakeup call back when it happened the first time?
mike-2598123
Thousands of years worth of CO2 data is available in the form of ice cores. You're completely wrong about the available data. 50 years ago it was 1964. You really should know a little more about this topic if you want to discuss it. There are a few legitimate questions regarding the data but you need a BS in chemistry not a BS in B/S to fully understand it.
Chicago may not have snow but the rest of Illinois has been covered in it for the last few weeks parts of the state are still white.
To the person above-- the Dust Bowl was not man made. Certain farming practices contributed to the soil being in poor condition, but those farming practices had nothing to do with it not raining. Drought conditions occur from time to time along with sustained periods of rain. It's just how the planet works.
Perhaps, but it was caused by man's activities. Although it happened in the 1930's, the problem started in the previous decade when farmers plowed the native grasses under, which kept the topsoil in place, in order to plant crops. The severe drought resulted in millions of tons of topsoil being blown away and actually ended up in the Atlantic Ocean.
Maybe nobody was asleep to wake up back in 1939-40? Either way it's scary. To think a record could be broken sends chills down my spine. I lived in Chicago for 20 years. Low snowfall is a good thing. Less accidents, less road damage, less salt used on the roads. This is really good news for the cost of snow removal (fuel, wear and tear on equipment, and overtime), road repair, and salt.
No matter the evidence some people just will not accept global warming as predicted by scientists since the 1970's. I'm sixty years of age and over these years I've noticed the snowfall being less and less each year. I've noticed the heat being much greater each year too. Water will become the new gold in another decade or so. Thank goodness my time here is nearly up - I just hate to think of the world my grandchildren are going to experience. The way the government hasn't been working for the last four years (thanks to republican dummies and comics) I don't see any good changes coming in the near future. Hopefully by the time my grandchildren become adults enough good people will make the changes necessary for clean energy to take over the old smog creating factories. I can have hope, can't I?
As long as our beloved politicians are getting paid by big oil the earth and its citizens will always come second.
you can, and i envy you for not having to live thru the hell that comes next.
In the 70's many scientists were predicting a new Ice age. 1977-1979 were 3 of the 11 coldest years on record in the US, with 1978-79 being the coldest winter in US history.
It was frigging cold at the end of the decade and people were gassing about it.
Snake3, I'm 57 myself and I know just what your saying. I live in North Dakota, a state which normally measures the annual snowfall by the yard, but for the past 2 winters I have barely had to break out the snow shovel.
All last winter we got about 6 inches or so at my house. This year we have had about 4-5 inches so far and get this; today is the 8th of January and its currently 41 degree's outside. (Not that I'm complaining.)
I'm afraid the water situation is going to get bleak in the very near future. Maybe even this summer. The bad part is the city I live in just sold it's water service to a private water company.
Think gas is high? Wait until there is a serious water shortage. Gas will probably look like a bargain.
Now I'm no expert on climate by any means. I'm only commenting on what I have personally experienced for the last 2 years.
So just exactly what was the cause 73, yes seventy three Fing years ago that caused the delay in snow? The only reason for the record streak was an abnormally early Spring. With regard to no measurable snow this Fall and Winter, it's not that out of the ordinary. Nor do you have to go very far from Chitcago, in any direction I might add, to find snow. Wake-up call by a$$. More hyperboly by the leftist media.
You call yourself FreeThinker and that is the best you can come up with? We'll see how many in Chi-town start to moan when the cold snap forecast to hit next week blows in. They'll be praying for rain and warmth.
Chestypuller. Seems like you are stuck in the 70's. You have 30 years of science to catch up on. Start reading. (Hint: turn off Fox.)
Global cooling was going around in popular culture in the 70's, but even at the time scientific peer-reviewed literature overwhelmingly overshadowed cooling in the scientific community.
ChestyPuller- You are right, that the 1970s were among the coldest years on record. However, evidence has shown that pollutant particles in the atmosphere had a dimming effect, by reflecting incoming solar radiation back into space and preventing the energy from getting to the surface to warm us. The emission provisions from the clean air act of 1973 started to clear up the air at the start of the 1980s, and since then the energy has reached the surface and is being trapped by the increased level of greenhouse gases. Now I only hope that some nut case doesn't take that information and run a campaign to lift EPA restrictions on pollutant particulates entering the air as a "solution" to global warming.
Go to the wikipaedia page on global dimming and look at the references for data. The references found there are excellent.
Yes Chit for brains that warm spring skewed the numbers, I guess you are talking about the stretch in March when we had 8 of 9 days 80 or above. Previously a total of 4 days of 80 or above had happened in a 140 years of record keeping, or that March was warmer than April was.
Only a right wing moron would see things that way.
Climate change is normal, however Man is drastically accelerating the process, only a FOXBOT idiot couldn't see that.
The science deniers are out again.......
Do they all own guns also?
Water will definitely be a problem, probably soon. It is the maker of life as we know it. When it's gone, we will be too.
Charlie ====== Where will the water go? Don't worry , it will be right here on the earth unless it gets so cold it gets locked up in ice.
What global warming? All I see is Sand. I can't even hear anything.
People are missing the point. The last record was a LONG time ago. So were people blaming global warming then? No. It was just a horrible winter. And ChestyPuller is right. Scientists did cry about an Ice Age the last time they squaked about climate change.
BTW, we need to stop sending landers to Mars. It's solar ice caps are melting, likely due to our manmade objects *eyeroll*. We are in a solar maximum. Lets see what happens when it goes back into it's next 11 year cycle.
If you point out that China has had it's coldest and snowiest winter on record, it is an aberration, or an example of the extremes being brought out by climate change. Most, however, simply dismiss it saying that one year is weather, not climate change. One year is weather! Truth is 100 years is weather when compared to the life span of the earth. I have a hunch the climate has been changing forever! Your not going to stop it now!
@ChestyPuller - The predictions you heard about in the 70's were made by a very small minority of climate scientists and were largely media driven hype. Most credible climate scientists in the 70's were predicting warming.
If you are interested in some science, here is a link that compares what the IPCC predicted vs. the GW deniers.
Actually scientists believed another ice age was coming in the early 70's. Lots of long haired hippie liberals with college degrees talked about it all the time. If we could trust that scientists aren't biased looking for grants to continue work and all of the data was pure and not manipulated, then, we might believe. The thing with science is that nothing is incontrovertible. Yet that's what you idiots pretend it has become which is a huge flag to the pursuit of the truth. Which is what science is. Religion is believing in things that are not real or verifiable.
@Eric-913730 The science deniers are out again.......
Do they all own guns also?
You bet I own guns. That's so I can shoot anyone who comes near my survival provisions, when the crap hits the fan and the crops fail. Science isn't going to be much comfort for those who don't own guns and ammo.
I don't deny global warming or any climate change. Happens every 10,000 years or so and man has little to do with it.
Gary-309... Water that rational planners think about, is water of a quality that it can be consumed, or used for agriculture. Industrial grades of water, which may be used for cooling, or manufacturing are not in short supply. China is short on agricultural grade water, but has plenty of water for industry. Drinking water for the population comes in large part from wells. If you have to use your agricultural grades of water for drinking water, you short yourself in food production down the line. Most places don't have such adequate rainfall that they do not need irrigation. If your irrigation comes from wells, you lower your water tables and thus are forced to drill deeper for drinking water. Also, water quality affects fisheries, and fish as a source of protein is significant to most of the worlds populations. Hundreds of miles of China's rivers are devoid of aquatic life in higher forms, due to water pollution.
how can this be bad. couple more years cubbies have spring training in lake forest think of the savings. fact is i live on the great lakes and i'm all for global worming
In the 70s a group of scientists published a (legitimate and accurate, but narrowly focused) paper on the correlation between the eccentricity of the orbit of the earth and ice ages. The short, short, short version - when the orbit of the earth is more round, the climate is warmer on average, when it is more oval, the climate is cooler on average. All other factors being equal, an ice age would thus be more likely when, due to a totally natural oscillation, the orbit of the earth becomes more ovoid, which started happening in the late 1970s.
The press of the 70s still being the press, blew that way out of proportion and declared that an ice age was coming. The paper didn't attempt to address greenhouse gases, oceanic currents, albedo or about a hundred other factors that all play in to the climate, not the least being us. I think everyone who cites the "belief" of an ice age among scientists in the 1970s should be forced to repeat the orbital eccentricity calculations by hand while listening to nails shrieking across a chalk board. When all factors are considered, scientists have in fact been anticipating anthropogenic global warning (read: we cause at least some of it) since the 70s.
Funny----too much snow and it is the reason the economy is bad and the job numbers for Obama suck (as they still do). Too little snow and it's bad for the economy and people who clear snow for a living in Chicago. Is there ever anyone who just notes that the weather changes all the time? Too little snow in Ohio and less precipitation means less flooding, yet too little snow is global warming. Too much snow and it's global warming. Where does this end? I drive a low fuel consumption car, I have those crappy expensive mercury laden (trace amounts of course) light bulbs, my toilet barely flushes, and I keep the house at 60 in the winter to help conserve energy and still the planet is overheating, or cooling, or whatever. The only thing that is a constant is the rise in the bills from the onset of the EPA regulations and highway deaths from the Obamamobiles with higher MPG usage and lower safety....yet the planet is still running a fever. Some blame the sun, some blame the orbit, some blame Co2, some blame our lifestyle, yet nobody has a good answer other than weather happens......it's up and then down and is always different. Ohio has been extremely cold and is colder this year than last with a warming trend coming to us the next few days. Being the age I am I remember the global ice age thing, and trying to point to one article that bends that into it's warming too is as absurd as spending money to get out of debt when it's the overwhelming spending.
How's this for a fact, the government can spend us into oblivion and it won't heat or cool the planet one degree either way.
Moisture from evaporated water is needed to cause rain or snow. Mega tankers take water from our Lakes every day and transport it overseas. There are multiple water bottling facilities on Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes taking hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, bottling it and shipping a great deal of it overseas every day. Do you liberal oil bashers think this draw down of our water supply has anything to do with the change in weather in a city along Lake Michigan??? Oh, yeah, not an Obama line so it doesn't fly?
I call nuts-ville on that; obviously sees villans around every corner and thinks his mailman is some kind of spy for the gubermint; why else have an army of hundreds of thousands on American soil to deliver junk mail and crate-n-barrel catalogues?
Mike - I think you need to get a stronger dose of metal in that tin-foil hat you're wearing...
Wow! Global Warming was Terrible in 1939!
hahahhahahahahahahahahh
Uh, maybe 70 years of science to catch up on.
Also, you may want to look up the difference between instance and frequency.
How about looking at the warming and cooling trends of the earth over the last tens of thousands of years, and not the last 70-100 years, which tells us nothing at all.
you my friend net it out. the kooks cant except it have you seen al gore lately, must weigh 350. between him and michael moore the other saviour they would tilt the boat both mega millionaires both mega hypocrites they laugh all the way to the bank their followers are lemmings and laughable
rocket sci,
The article's Accu Weather link says that the frequency of the mildest winters was higher 70 years ago as well.
Among other tidbits from long ago:
I.e., between 1886 and 1944 we did what happened this year in Chicago, three times.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/chicagos-snow-total-finally-ex/3692735
Maybe it was the 1890's steam cars?
Fingers crossed the no snow trend continues the weekend of Jan 18th. I don't want snow when I am up there for the weekend.
Were they talking about global warming in 1939?
CA ------- Must have been , look how little snow they had. What else could cause it?
In 1939 they were a bit distracted by a little disruption in culture called WORLD WAR II. They also didn't have the technology we do now to see longer term trends.
You mean like year to year? When we get record snow fall it's global warming, record heat waves it's global warming, record precipitation it's icebergs melting, record ice gains it's global warming......science can't even figure out if coffee or eggs are good or bad.
Some religion that is, no constants.
and next year when they get 4 feet of snow they will be complaining about that also...deal with it....
Must be all that hot lead flying around keeping the temps abnormally high. Blame it on guns.
yup, no global warming here...move along, nothing to see. i wish i had the same rose colored glasses as some of the posters here. might make it nicer to swim along the soon-to-be coast in nevada.
You obviously no nothing about geography, much less topography, with a moronic statement like that.
sebreb======== Chicago is much better off with less snow. Think of all the expense of snow removal they have already saved this year. This will benefit their budget. And with clear streets , the emergency vehicles will be able to move around more efficiently, thus saving lives.
You don't see cities that never receive snow or receive very little complaining they don't have more.
It snowed southeast of Chicago. More than usual. It is because of the storms coming from the gulf vs. the northwest.
The globe is warming and has been since the ice ages. It will keep speeding up, just like the last ice cube in a cooler melts faster than the first cube. Nothing will reverse it, it was happening whether our butts were here or not.
I'm glad you think so. I'll let the 97% of scientists who disagree with you know. They can now stop working.
That's why the 97% of scientist do agree with it. It keeps them working.
Maybe that's also why so many say they believe in God, so they can continue to get funding from the God fearing morons in the Government, and the ones that vote for them.
real3nuff; NO where in the midwest has seen "above" normal snowfall this year! Not sure where you're getting your information...??? Michigan has seen a small fraction of normal. Rain predicted far into the upper peninsula this weekend. Normal? Above normal snowfall? Not even close.
even the kooks on your side agree weather in not climate. four more years of this goofiness and a do nothing economy and hopefully adults will take back this out of control daycare
Miskaffon; SOUTHEAST of Chicago is Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus who had heavy snow the past few weeks. Pretty sure the last time I looked those were in the midwest.
notrocketscience; please show me where 97% of the scientists disagree that the planet has been warming since the ice age, I'll be waiting. It sure hasn't been cooling and it hasn't been staying the same.
The peak of this current glacial/interglacial period ended 5,000 years ago, real. It was called the Holocene Thermal Maximum, and the planet has indeed been cooling off ever since, heading towards the next Ice Age - a fact the climate scientists understand quite well.
That gradual cooling ended when humans began digging billions of tons of carbon our of the ground (fossil fuels), and pumping it back up into our atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas - another fact that scientists have known for more than 150 years.
Now, instead of continuing to cool, our planet is suddenly (and very rapidly) warming again. And no one - not climate scientists nor any of the so-called 'skeptics' - can identify any primary driver other than human-caused emissions. Not even after many decades of trying.
If something else were causing this, one single research paper identifying the 'real' culprit would shut this whole thing down - just as like Germ Theory shut down speculation on the mechanism behind the spread of bacterial diseases.
Why hasn't anyone been able to do that? It only takes one paper.
And with 2012 having registered as the hottest year is US history, it's hard to argue that the cooling trend hasn't been reversed as part of a larger trend.
As long as we have people like this in Congress, we cannot make any sensible decision about anything to do with science.
Republican congressman Paul Broun dismisses evolution and other theories
Member of House science committee says evolution, Big Bang theory and embryology are 'lies straight from the pit of hell'
A Republican congressman who sits on the science committee of the House of Representatives has dismissed evolution, the Big Bang theory and embryology as "lies straight from the pit of hell".
Paul Broun, who ran for re-election as Georgia representative this November unopposed by Democrats, made the comments during a speech at a baptist church in September.
Rocket,
As a former one time resident of the State of Ga (my mother and brother still reside there), I can understand the Republican not being challenged by a Democratic opponent. The Dems hate to loose.
Until Super-Dem happens along it's not going to change. The Republican influence in the State if very strong and just like no one else likes loosing, Dems are going to be reluctant to run anyone who is not a superior contender.
Myself, I'm an independant so I just vote for who I feel is the better choice no matter the letter beside their name. I belive there is plenty of good and bad on both side of the aisle.
BTW, I liked your comment and gave you a vote. Not trying to be hard to get along with, just throwing in my two-cents worth. Have a nice evening.
notrocketscience-503001 -- could you give a link to that--I'd like to read it! If it gives a link to Paul Brown's web site or some such, I would like to write him a letter telling him why I disagree with him. Thanks.
Lisa,
From The Guardian (although there are many other sources - he got a lot of bad press on this one):
Watch the video of him actually saying those things at that link. It's only 90 seconds long. I promise you'll be amazed.
Broun's website contact page is here. Please do tell him what you think. Most of the people I know already have. How can we possibly maintain first world status with people like that on our Science Committee? This becomes a National Security issue.
Thank you, Physicist-retired. I appreciate it :)
My pleasure, Lisa. Allow me to thank you for taking the time to make your thoughts known on this.
It's absolutely astounding that such a person sits on a Science Committee - or holds any elected office. What are we thinking?
Gee, was global warming worse in the 1930's than today?
My point is not to argue one way or the other, but to point out that warmer periods have occurred within living memory. Even "superstorm" Sandy pales before the hurricane of 1938 that came ashore at Long Island. It's tough to get more unscientific than the press does with headlines like this.
What part of hottest year on record (see related article) escapes you?
Not a DAMN Thing You or I can do to change it anyway! So relax we're all gonna die anyway lol
Hate to say it Joe. But you may be right. They say ignorance is bliss. So the deniers might be very blissful.
ill quit lightin candles if government quits being biggest polluter on earth
joe..look at asia as the earths biggest polluter. we in the U.S.have the epa to regulate emmisions and pollution.for what its worth its a heck of a lot better than nothing.if you don't think so go live in asia for a year and report back.
We were nearly snowless last year up here in Wisconsin. This year, we have snow on the ground after receiving about a foot in a single day. Things vary from year to year, that's quite obvious. It's ridiculous to be blaming this on global warming/climate change already. Like others have asked, "were they talking about global warming in 1939?" The south was hard-hit by drought at the time. Did we have weather and earth monitoring satellites back then to monitor the ice caps or glaciers? No. Maybe they went through a period of melting back then as well, which were caused by changes in the climate.
We have known about "Global Warming" for decades. -Durning the 2000 Pres. Election Fmr. VPOTUS Al Gore warned us that we have some 10 years to begin to change our mind-sets and start to reform our use of energy. At that time Former VP Cheney called him a "Tree Hugger". Hey Dickie boy, seems like that "Tree Hugger" was right and YOU were wrong. HMMMmmmmmmm.......wonder what else you and your buddy were wrong about ? But I digress. Seriously, we need to work on these issues before the greatest power of this earth "Mother Nature" takes us all to the woodshed and whoops our butts ! Would love to know if NOAA has anything to add.
Al Gore needs to take his own advice before anyone takes anyting he says seriously. He probably has one of the biggest carbon footprints of anyone, but that's okay. He can just buy himself some carbon credits (if they're still for sale)
i wonder how much bombs and nukes affect global temps? got to be more then my toyota does dont ya think?
Yes ======== If according to Gore in 2000 we only had 10 years to prevent the problem and now more than that time has passed, why are you worried about it? The time to act has passed. Problem is the alarmists will continue to have deadline after deadline beyond which we are doomed. They're just like the end of the earth people who every so often claim it will end on a date certain. It never does.
Deniers cannot tell the difference between variation and trend. Probably were no paying attention in high school.
notrocket======= Sounds like you were no paying attention in English class.
So, it's the least amount of snow in 73 years, so it must be climate change? I wonder how they explained the lack of snowfall 73 years ago?
Ans, I wonder how they explained the dust bowl in the 1930's? It may have bene climate change, but I doubt it was manmade back then.
There's a difference between instance and frequency. Extreme weather events have happened before. Now they just happen all the time.
The Dust Bowl was man-made, at least partially. Poor farming practices, leaving the topsoil exposed, combined with a naturally occurring drought to create inhospitable living conditions and nearly destroyed our country. The Dust Bowl is actually a great example of how man can affect the environment.
bob ====== The Dust Bowl didn't nearly destroy our country. It's that kind of overblown exaggeration that militates against the embrace of GW claims.
The Dust Bowl was caused by man's activities. Although it happened in the 1930's, the problem started in the previous decade when farmers plowed the native grasses under, which kept the topsoil in place, in order to plant crops. The severe drought resulted in millions of tons of topsoil being blown away, ending up in the Atlantic Ocean.
Once in a century events used to happen, well, once in a century. Now they happen all the time. Here's a list from 2011
1) East Africa drought and famine: over 30,000 dead
2) Thailand flooding: most expensive natural disaster in Thai history
3) Queensland, Australia flooding: most expensive natural disaster in Australian history
4) Columbia floods: most expensive natural disaster in Colombia’s history
5) Tropical Storm Washi: second deadliest weather disaster in Philippine history
6) Brazil flash flood kills 902: deadliest natural disaster in Brazil’s history
7) April 25 – 28 “Super” tornado outbreak kills 321 in the U.S.
8) Southern U.S./Northern Mexico drought: $10 billion in damage, and rising
9) Pakistan floods: 2nd most expensive weather disaster in Pakistani history
10 (tie) Hurricane Irene: most damaging tropical cyclone of 2011
10 (tie) May 22 – 27 Joplin, Missouri tornado outbreak
1) Sri Lanka: Heaviest rains in nearly a century of record keeping triggered a 1-in-100 year flood in January that killed 43 and did $500 million in damage–the costliest weather-related disaster in Sri Lanka’s history. Renewed rains February 1 – 10 caused flooding that killed 18 and cost an additional $450 million–the second most costly natural disaster in Sri Lanka’s history.
2) Heavy rains in September and October in Cambodia triggered flooding that killed 250 and did $521 million in damage–by far the most expensive natural disaster in Cambodian history. The previous most expensive disaster was the $160 million cost of floods in July 2000.
3) El Salvador: Heavy rains from Tropical Depression 12-E in October triggered flooding that killed 140 in Central America and caused $900 million in damage to El Salvador (4.2% of GDP). This is the 2nd most expensive weather-related disaster in El Salvador’s history, behind the $939 million price tag of their Nov. 7, 2009 flood.
4) China: June floods in China killed 239, doing $6.65 billion in damage, the 10th most damaging weather-related disaster in Chinese history.
5) China: September floods killed 101 and did $4.25 billion in damage.
6) U.S.: Greatest flood on the Lower Mississippi River on record caused $4 billion in damage.
7) China: A drought in Northern China during January through April cost $2.7 billion.
8) Denmark: Severe flooding on July 2 – 3 caused $1 billion in damage, the 3rd most expensive weather-related disaster in Danish history.
Rocket surgeon, Did you copy and paste that from Al Gore's website?
Russian scientist studying the quickly melting tundra, worries about all the gigatonnes of methane that will soon be released into the atmosphere, and is asked if he is part of Al Gore's scam. His reply: "Al Who?"
It's also a critical issue for regional farmers who need the cold/frost as part of their growing season. I am invested in a very small family farm. They're already quite concerned. Last year, due to one late-season frost, they lost nearly all their winter squash and a good many tomatoes. That same frost killed most of the regional fruit harvest.
Man oh man! 1939 saw some terrible Global Warming. And now with the jet stream pushing all that colder air going up North, the polar ice caps will for sure melt now!
One point to consider - they had less or as little snow in 1939. So in the RECENT past the weaather, or climate, has been the same as today. Why is this so startling to anyone? Also, please look at the historic pictures of Chicago in 1939, compare to today, and then decide (if you are capable of rational thought) if the air is cleaner today or back then.
As a Chicagoan growing up in the '50s, I remember playing in the yard and coming home black, mainly because of all the soot from coal-fired boilers. The lower atmosphere may be cleaner in terms of particulate matter in the city, but that is not the same as the rise in carbon-based gases at the higher atmospheric levels. But you already knew that.
Wake up- the only constant is change. This just in, Nov 11, 2012, quoted from NASA and British...
"NASA and British Antarctic Survey scientists have reported the first direct
evidence that marked changes to Antarctic sea ice drift caused by changing winds
are responsible for observed increases in Antarctic sea ice cover in the past
two decades."
Two decades of increasing sea ice in Antartica. But all the news says is when ice melts, not when it grows. Why? And this is contrary to what the global warming modelling said would happen. If the models are (again) so wrong, why do people still use them? I will let you answer that yourself.
Bill: And now...the rest of the story from NPR. Here's what the leader of the British team, Robert Mulvaney had to say about this finding:
"I still think the jury must be out, whether you can attribute it one way or the other. I think this neither proves nor denies that this is a human-induced change," Mulvaney says.
And that makes this finding interesting not just for scientific reasons, but for political ones.
There's a very broad scientific consensus, based on many lines of evidence, that human changes to the planet are having a real impact on air temperature, sea temperature, droughts and melting ice. But Mulvaney knows that his more ambiguous finding is likely to be picked up by skeptics who are looking for evidence to argue that natural variability, rather than human activities, explain the Earth's rapid warming. So be it.
"I'm a scientist; I'm just being honest and reporting what we see," he says. "I'm not trying to be political here. I'm not trying to either prove or disprove human-induced climate change."
In fact, Mulvaney says when he started studying Antarctica in the 1980s, he was skeptical that humans were already affecting the climate and the ice.
"I think as the years have gone by I've moved considerably away from that early skeptical stance," he says. "And as I stand here now, you can't keep going year after year with most of the evidence all pointing in the same direction and not come to the conclusion that the climate is warming."
When one is confronted with a potential threat, there are three possible courses: flee it, fight it, or ignore it. Actually, there's a fourth course: actively deny it. Thanks to millions of dollars from private sources that have been poured into a propaganda campaign, more U.S. citizens disbelieve in global warming than they did 20 years ago. The exact opposite is true for the global community of scientists. For those who posit that there is some massive political/scientific conspiracy taking place, I want you to think about something. Although in the past there has been legitimate research done by groups of scientists that seems to lead to false or partial conclusions, this is usually due to interested funding. Tobacco effects research funded by private corporations is the usual example, but you can also say that the government now is substantially funding research because it believes global warming is real. The problem is that it isn't only the U.S. government funding entities engaged in funding climate change research, but governments around the world, as well as private research institutions that have determined that there is something critical to invest research dollars in. The size of the conspiracy to promote global warming theory would have to be as massive as would be a scientific conspiracy to prove the existence of genetic mutation against all contrary evidence. These supposed multi-national scientific conspiracies couldn't hold together too long before they pulled apart under the weight of their own lies. Scientists are a pretty competitive bunch, after all, and they're in the business of disproving each other's research. Then there is the basic science behind this that fully documents the increasing amount of carbon gases and particulates that we have been pouring into the atmosphere for over a century, along with a decrease in biomass that can capture and sequester carbon. There aren't any causes that have no effects. Finally, there is a plethora of evidence of massive ecological and climate changes--melting glaciers and ice caps, species extinctions, growing ocean dead zones, steady rises in global atmospheric temperature, changes in the composition of upper atmospheric gases, rising frequency of extreme weather events--that begs the question of whether or not there is something interdependent occurring. That is why I question anyone who claims that they are just being independent of mind and skeptical when they adamantly deny--not just question, but deny--the possibility of global warming. At least, if you are a member of the human species and have some motivation to look beyond your own lifespan and want to further our long term survival, isn't in your best interest to say, "Maybe things aren't as bad as some say, but at least let's entertain the possibility of a real threat and look for a way to head it off."
It wasn't climate change 75 years ago when it broke the record, but it's climate change breaking a 75 year old record? Two years ago they had a 50 year record snow. Climate change. We really are a nation and world of lemmings and fools. These tree huggers are nuts! It a tornado hits - it's climate change. If it rains too much - it's climate change. It has been raining and snowing and droughting and blowing for millions of years. But now, it's climate change. Our species is really in trouble - not because of climate change but because we are so stupid we'll latch on to and follow anyone. I believe we are in a cycle of climate change but so what. It happens all the time. El Nino El Nina, cold winter, warm winter.... get off of climate change.
Who do you trust on matters like this?
I'll leave it to the scientists to study and interpret climate data - I'll be the first to admit I'm not qualified to opine on such matters and whether we are in the midst of a natural cycle or a manmade trend (or both?). However, I think it is a fair observation to note that in the 24/7 news cycle culture that we now live in, the media is always looking for the next crisis to attract viewers / readers, and the global warming / climate change debate is not excluded from this trend. Take, for example, the bit in the article about the falling level of the Great Lakes. I recall that in the mid-90s, the media focus in Chicago was on rising lake levels...
You couldn't be more right. Considering the amount of time that humans have inhabited the earth and the amount of time that the universe has existed I find it hard to believe that we are now able to control the future of the universe.
Carbon emissions did not melt the ice age.
Some things are beyond our control whether we wish to believe it or not.
Pigs: I agree about how the 24/7 news cycle thrives on crises, real or imagined, but the legitimate concern about the effects of carbon emissions on atmosphere and climate is a long, slow story, regardless of the media's attention span. Now, the "fiscal cliff" is another story.
Lydia ======== You're so right. No matter what happens the proponents of GW say that's what caused it. Cold, it's GW; hot , it's GW; storms, it's GW; no storms, it's GW, etc. So it can't ever be disproved that its happening. That's not science.
By the way , we are so far into this now that computer predictions from years ago are now being tested by reality and they are being shown to be incorrect, i.e., what the computer models said would happen hasn't.
So what happened in the winter of 1939-1940? Surely the years following would have made evidence for global warming/climate change. Wait, you mean it took 70 years to break the record? Why has there been snow between 1940 and now?
Very simply, this is not about 1939. There is a serious question about whether the simultaneous occurrence of extreme weather events globally are related to an overall change in global climate patterns and whether that has been affected by humans, mainly through a massive increase in the use of fossil fuels. If you feel that you can definitively write all of this off to a bunch of wrongheaded scientists and professional worriers, you must know something that I don't. If this isn't true, I would suggest that you just keep your down-home aw-shucks anti-intellectual wisdom to yourself. I don't for one second think that you're naive as you sound, by the way.
Someone has to be the proverbial devil's advocate. :-)
No amount of screaming and squawking will get Obama to do anything about global warming. Even he knows he can't add it to the 1,938,294 things that he thinks can be "solved" by taxing the rich. Everyone will be impacted by higher energy costs, and if that happened, he'd lose his class-warfare moniker of "Obama Claus."