Twelve-Month Long Drop in Global Temperatures Wipes Out Century of Global Warming

[phrogpilot73]

Well, 3.5 billion years ago, there was much more heat being generated at depth, in the Earth. It's a different situation now; apples and oranges. I'm not really sure why I need a complete record of the Earth's climate history to establish trends for the modern era (for which there are decent records and trends).

Here's why: You don't have enough data to state whether or not this modern era trend is out of the norm or not. How do we know that the earth doesn't have a sinusoidal temperature cycle that lasts about 400,000 years and we're at the midway point? You don't. Without the climate history spanning more than just the last century or so, you can't make a statement that any thing is out of the ordinary. Does that mean I think that we shouldn't do things that are responsible, and ecologically friendly (as we learn about their effects)? No. Do I think that we can say that we're suffering from global warming? No. We don't know enough about the Earth's natural climate cycle.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

At first I was like "great news, this will stfu those smug holier-than-thou environmentalists driving around in their prius's, pretending to make a difference."

But now that I think about it, this is a bad thing. Global Warming isn't all that bad...but global cooling could really collectively F us in the A.

Food prices are already going up due to spikes in demand for ethanol (ethanol subsidies are another BS politically driven pseudo-scientific load of crap), think about what food prices would do if cold weather slashed agro-productivity?

In the end, Americans don't have too much to bitch about I suppose, whether the world gets worse because of heating or cooling (or anything else for that matter), we will be ok for the time being - it's people in the 3rd world that are going to get screwed no matter what.

 

[Spekkio]

Despite likely overstated "Saudi and friends" reserves, I'm fairly sure we aren't going to run out of the black stuff that quickly. It could get a lot more expensive because exploration and some of the new extraction processes are going to break bank, but running out is probably not the thing to worry about (However, know my bias, as petroleum exploration geology is one of my back up plans if Navy doesn't work out... ).

And economical alternative energy production IS already happening via a whole slew of private solar, geothermal, nuclear, and tidal energy projects. Although I was talking more about the efficiency end of the equation with technologies that reduce your killowatt useage; green architecture, improved hybrids, and such.

I wasn't trying to imply that we're going to run out of oil in the next decade. All I was saying is that there really isn't much incentive to truly make and develop an alternative source of energy, other than too many people buying into global warming predictions that we're all going to die from over-heating the earth. Practically everything mechanical that we have runs on fossil fuel, so the alternative not only has to be more efficient, but also so much more efficient that it warrants the cost of switching over everything we have to this new source of energy. At this point, I don't see that happening before we run out of fossil fuel.

 

[Beans]

To the thermodynamicists here: If this whole Earth-is-a-heat-engine theory is true, then there must be an output shaft or piston somewhere (if there's no work being done, then the system is not an "engine"). If we could locate that piston (or shaft), we could probably run a generator with it. Problem solved!

 

[Air Squire]

A reasonable person would accept the fact that we don't really have a f---ing clue whats happening and it's been that way for millennia. Until someone can predict the weather two days ahead of time I'm not going to trust much of what the weather guessers say.

One of of drags of forums is you just can't here sarcasm dripping from someones lips... :icon_tong :icon_smil <------Try using one of these little gizzmos.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

Another drag of forums is if you were to say "here" we would hear "hear," but if you type "here" we hear "here." :icon_tong:icon_mi_1:icon_wink

 

[Random8145]

Regarding predicing weather, remember predicting weather and global climate are two different things. However, a changed global climate will have different weather theoretically, so if they can't predict the weather for the current climate too far out, I don't know how they think they can try to predict it for a predicted future climate.

 

[MPH]

Regarding predicing weather, remember predicting weather and global climate are two different things.

Absolutely, predicting climate change on a massive scale would be infinitely less complicated than tomorrows weather considering all of the potential variables in the system.

(I'm being sarcastic again)

 

[Random8145]

Yes, I mean, from my understanding, it isn't like predicting global climate is the same as predicting the weather, just on a much more massive scale, but rather an entirely different thing altogether.

But considering that they can't predict the weather more than week out with any real accuracy, trying to predict it with a predicted climate which itself takes thousands of variables to try to predict, is nigh impossible.