Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone
Funny that it just appears as a testament to your self-centered short-sightedness and a willful ignorance about what the effects of global warming could actually be to argue it based on local cold weather.
Hello. Global Warming 101. Enough cold fresh water flowing into the North Atlantic (a basic ramification of global warming) could cause changes in the gulf stream and other ocean currents which keep North America and Europe relatively warm and would lead to a disruption of weather patterns and, ultimately, the seasons themselves. Global warming would actually mean freakish weather and an increasingly cold climate.
You might try to grasp this basic concept before pretending to be incredulous experts.
|
I'm well aware of the thermohaline cycle and the effects of global warming upon it, and I can explain it much better than Al Gore did in his documentary; his explanation was overly simplistic. (Lord, I hope you're not basing your explanation on that Roland Emmerich movie.
) You're mistaking informed skepticism on my part (and maybe albed's) for willful ignorance. Are you doing it on purpose? It's true I'm known to shoot from the hip when I don't have all the information, but do you actually believe that I've consciously chosen to avoid the available data on global warming? You know better than to make that assumption.
My own observations of local weather, though circumstantial, are valid: they highlight the inability of computer models to accurately predict precipitation and cloud cover more than a week in advance. The main concern over global warming stems from anticipated changes to the hydrologic cycle, mainly the various positive and negative feedback loops that occur when increased temperatures accelerate ocean surface evaporation. Water vapor, depending on what phase it takes on in the air, is either the most potent greenhouse gas or the best sunlight deflector on Earth. As water vapor concentrations increase, the greenhouse effect will strengthen while the amount of sunlight reaching the earth decreases. So far it is unknown whether these two effects will cancel each other out and to what degree, and computer models are of no help because they're terrible at simulating the hydrologic cycle.
The models that meteorologists use to predict local weather are related to the models climatologists use to predict regional and global climate change, and they suffer the same limitations. You can tell that a particular global climate model is deeply flawed when it inaccurately predicts precipitation rates around the world, and most of today's models do not agree with actual observations, let alone each other. Though climate models are becoming more complex and more accurate every year, they still cannot reliably predict changes to our climate more than a few years in advance.
It isn't global warming I'm skeptical of, it's the idea that policy should be based on the results of these flawed climate models. Reducing carbon emissions isn't as easy as screwing in a compact fluorescent light bulb, you know. The AGW alarmists would have us all make drastic changes to our lifestyles and keep developing nations living in the stone age.