Man[kind] Mostly to Blame for 2003 Heatwave

[Kellanved]

Human activity has increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and more than doubled the risk of record-breaking hot European summers, like that of 2003, according to a new study by Peter Stott from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, and Daithi Stone and Myles Allen of the University of Oxford.

Linked to more than 27,000 excess deaths across the continent, the temperatures of summer 2003 were almost undoubtedly the highest in Europe for over 500 years. This new research – reported today (Dec 2) in Nature – shows how human influence, mainly fossil fuel burning, can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave and that this type of summer could be expected to occur as often as every other year by the middle of this century.

As climate naturally varies, with some very hot summers and some very cool ones, the hot summer of 2003 could have been dismissed as just another quirk of nature. However, by using sophisticated climate models and new statistical techniques, this study has been able to separate the human factors from natural ones.

“We simulated 2003 summer temperatures over Europe –with and without the effect of man’s activities –and compared these with observations,” explains Peter Stott. “We found that although the high temperature experienced in 2003 was not impossible in a climate unaltered by man, it is very likely that greenhouse gases have at least doubled the risk and our best estimate is that such a heatwave is now four times more likely as a result of human influence on climate.”


...
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3830690

[pk_du]

1. Sorry - i know this is a serious subject but I clicked in expecting

to see a picture of THE man who was personally responsible.

[htuttle]

2. Here

[hatrack]

6. "DC-Area Man Mostly To Blame For 2003 Heatwave"

Kind of like The Onion - "Local Man Would Like Fries With That."

[Xipe Totec]

7. Is he in hot water now? n/t

[bowens43]

5. Me too....

you beat me too it by about a few seconds.

[bowens43]

3. Wow.

When I read your subject line I thought maybe it was one man in particular.

;-)

[Kellanved]

8. Don't blame me, blame the LBN rules.

:hi:

[pk_du]

9. No harm, no foul....in fact brightened up my day. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

4. Anybody know where Chimpy's fiddle is?

He'll be wanting to strike up a lively tune to accompany this phase of the apocalypse.

[jpak]

10. Abstract from the Nature paper...

The summer of 2003 was probably the hottest in Europe since at latest AD 1500, and unusually large numbers of heat-related deaths were reported in France, Germany and Italy. It is an ill-posed question whether the 2003 heatwave was caused, in a simple deterministic sense, by a modification of the external influences on climate—for example, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—because almost any such weather event might have occurred by chance in an unmodified climate. However, it is possible to estimate by how much human activities may have increased the risk of the occurrence of such a heatwave. Here we use this conceptual framework to estimate the contribution of human-induced increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and other pollutants to the risk of the occurrence of unusually high mean summer temperatures throughout a large region of continental Europe. Using a threshold for mean summer temperature that was exceeded in 2003, but in no other year since the start of the instrumental record in 1851, we estimate it is very likely (confidence level >90%) that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave exceeding this threshold magnitude.

[KingChicken]

11. Bush is the virus

[junker]

12. bullshit. Do the math people. THis is crock. there are 400 quadrillion btu

there are 400 quadrillion btus a year put into the earth system by humans. The sun puts in 6million quadrillion btus a year.

THat is

400 vs 6,000,000

ALL the co2 and methane emitted by all the humans and all their cows ever, don't make up one percent of what is released from arctic (used to be) perma-frost a year. And over 1/3 of all potential CO2 yet remains in the arctic perma frost waiting to be released by heat. FROM THE FRIGGING SUN!

and it will take all humans now alive over 400 years to create enough CO2 to equal one per cent of the amount in the perma frost.

and there is yet more good news. THe methane fields of the deep north pacific ocean hold the rest of the readily available CO2 potential in the form of frozen methane slush. Which is also heat sensitive.

AND the last time that there was this much CO2 in the air, it was 55 million years ago, AND there was an extinction going on, AND there was no, repeat, no available ice on the planet. AND the evidence is that when the last of that previous ice-age ice gave way, it did so in the course of less than 7 days.

Ok, not global warming due to cars, oil , or squat done or not done by humans. Yes, we are suffering through catastrophic global climate change, but humans ain't causing it.

You would think that humans would think and do math now and again.

[Kellanved]

13. nice of you to use outdated units for outdated "science".

[Gregorian]

15. So it's you versus thousands of scientists.

Not one single scientist is in disagreement with the facts. They have done the math. They have confirmed their findings. Go argue with them and see how you fare. Their studies have been reviewed in detail. There is nothing missing from their findings.
Besides, I would rather err on the conservative side. If the doctor told me I had high blood pressure, I'd do whatever I had to do in order to avoid aggrivating it. I take it you wouldn't pay attention.
There are other facets to the global warming argument that have nothing to do with warming, per se. It's not just about warming. The evidence shows that six billion cannot be sustained the way our 300 million in the US lives.

[hatrack]

16. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Quiz time for Junker:

1. What is the current concentration of atmospheric CO2 versus circa 1750 AD?

2. Approximately how much excess carbon (that is, beyond the absorptive ability of the biosphere) enters the atmosphere each year as a direct result of human activity?

3. What are the greenhouse gases? How many are there and what are their names?

4. If climate change is governed overwhelmingly by solar activity, as you maintain (I think), what would be the expected results for relative summer and winter temperatures in the polar regions?

5. And (follow-up to 4) what have actual temperature results from the polar regions over the past 30 years shown?

[NickB79]

19. Do you understand global warming at all?

The theory of global warming states that we are increasing the temperature of the planet not by releasing our own waste heat, but by releasing gases that trap more of the energy from the sun. Your statement of 400 quadrillion BTU's per year of heat released by humans means nothing to the theory of global warming. The gases we release are TRAPPING much more of the incoming 6,000,000 quadrillion BTU's than would normally be held in our atmosphere. Do you usually make pointless and off-topic claims when debating a subject? You seem to be unable to grasp the idea that the small changes we make can snowball into very large changes, very quickly. THAT is why we are CURRENTLY seeing massive amounts of methane being released from the Artic tundra. We don't have to wait 400 years to equal this amount; the thaw and release is becoming exponential due to the relatively small input of CO2 and methane we initially provided over the past several centuries.

[cliss]

14. I believe it.

On Thanksgiving day, we watched a DVD movie that someone brought over. It was called, 'The Day After' which showed one alternative outcome to Global warming. It was scary. The whole family was shook up.

Does anyone know what the forecast is for the summer of 2005? More of the same?

[ze_dscherman]

20. That movie is mostly fiction

It may well be possible that the gulf stream is stopped as an effect of global warming and thus will cause freezing conditions in Europe. This may be a worst case scenario.

What you see in that movie, however, is highly exaggerated and not possible to happen.

Global warming (and partial cooling) due to human intervention needs to be taken very seriously, but please don't get your information from highly speculative films.

[VolcanoJen]

17. Kick!

K I C K !

[JohnOneillsMemory]

18. 'Splains why * is so fond of CO2. He's frying the Euro.

Didn't thousands of French die in the heatwave?

Related topic: HAARP program for weaponizing the ionosphere in a number of ways including creating a lens to focus solar radiation on a region to affect crops etc.

It is going on now. Look at this website-
www.haarp.net