Heat wave ignites climate change debate, 2010 warmest year since 1880

[malaise]

http://www.independentreview.net/community/devonp/heat-wave-ignites-climate-change-debate-2010-warmest-year-ever
<snip>
A scorching heat wave on the east coast is intensifying the climate change debate. The climate change debate was also hot last March when raging blizzards battered the east. Extreme weather events are getting used by both sides to support their global warming arguments in the debate about climate change and energy bill in Congress. A British panel exonerated the "Climategate" scientists, saying it found no evidence the group manipulated research to back up global warming. Meanwhile, 2010 is shaping up to be the warmest year in history.

Article source: Heat wave ignites climate change debate, 2010 warmest year ever by Personal Money Store

Heat wave goes global

The heat wave is news because it's cooking places like New York and Washington where the national media hang out. Other places within the world are hot also. The heat wave has gone global according to the Christian Science Monitor. Beijing hit a near-record 105 degrees Fahrenheit. In Baghdad and Riyadh, on July 6 it was 113 and 111 degrees. Kuwait set the day’s world temperature high at 122 degrees. As reported by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), the combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the first five months of the year was the warmest on record, and 1.22 degrees warmer than the 20th century average.

[trumad]

1. A dumb opening line...

The debate is between Scientists and idiots... I'll take the Scientists...

[louis-t]

2. Something I don't understand.

1988 was the hottest summer I can ever recall. Temp hovered near 100 with no rain for months. It is rarely listed as one of the hottest. Maybe I remember it as the hottest because I had no air in my car and a lousy A/C unit at home and it was really dry.

[malaise]

3. This year is preety bad across the globe

Russia has its worst drought in 100 years

[yella_dawg]

5. I don't know where you live.

But 1980 was the hottest summer I can imagine (and I lived in Riyadh Saudi Arabia for a couple of years). 100+ highs for nearly forty days in central Texas. Lows in the nineties. I saw 130+ in the shade. Obviously the thermometer was wrong, but not that wrong. Your memory serves you well.


Of course, for purposes of this discussion, the measurements begin in January and places like Antarctica are included in the calculation. A matter of climate vs weather.

[louis-t]

14. Oops, changed my avatar. Had a big ole' English D before.

Or maybe it was a Red Wings logo.

[closeupready]

7. I remember that summer. Yes, it was very hot.

I was in Madison, Wisconsin that year. I don't know, though, if the heat was sustained for weeks and weeks - obviously, in summer, it's going to be hot - I mean, 100 degrees for three weeks? I just can't recall.

[closeupready]

9. It is mentioned in the wiki entry on heat waves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_wave#20th_century

About three paragraphs in.

[fascisthunter]

4. sit back and wait for a moron to post some graph

that has very little to do with the facts surrounding this in hopes of creating doubt. Why they do it? Because they are stupid and assume all others are too.

[Hestia]

6. A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere

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http://science.nasa.gov/science-news..._thermosphere/

A Puzzling Collapse of Earth's Upper Atmosphere
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July 15, 2010: NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.


Layers of Earth's upper atmosphere. Credit: John Emmert/NRL. "This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). "It's a Space Age record."

The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.

"Something is going on that we do not understand," says Emmert.

The thermosphere ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. It is a realm of meteors, auroras and satellites, which skim through the thermosphere as they circle Earth. It is also where solar radiation makes first contact with our planet. The thermosphere intercepts extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons from the sun before they can reach the ground. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. (This heating can raise temperatures as high as 1400 K—hence the name thermosphere.) When solar activity is low, the opposite happens.

Lately, solar activity has been very low. In 2008 and 2009, the sun plunged into a century-class solar minimum. Sunspots were scarce, solar flares almost non-existent, and solar EUV radiation was at a low ebb. Researchers immediately turned their attention to the thermosphere to see what would happen.


more at: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news..._thermosphere/

Charts, graphs & 27 8x10 color glossies with circles and arrows with paragraph on the back of each one...

[Hydra]

8. Calling it "global warming" was a mistake

"Climate change" sounds milquetoast, but it's more accurate.

I wish we could get a better term to market it as, but it seems to be shifting to extremes- colder winters, hotter summers, nastier and more unpredictable storms, melting polar caps...

[thetonka]

11. Yes it was, and so was letting Al take a leadership role.

So many better role models and leaders on this subject, Al has been a complete disgrace and cause more harm then good at this point.

[mcar]

13. "A complete disgrace" Really?

How so? Please, provide links and facts to back up this assertion.

[thetonka]

15. How about an example of someone who isn't a disgrace

Ed Begley Jr. I'm a HUGE fan.

[glitch]

12. I use Catastrophic Climate Change.

And try to weave "Permian level extinction" somewhere into the discussion.

[thetonka]

It's hot in California too

Oh wait, it's July and it's always hot in California doesn't mean there is Global Warming, doesn't mean there isn't Global Warming.

[malaise]

16. It's the driest England in 80 years

it's the worst drought in Russia in over 100 years - simplistic arguments no longer carry sway.

[TrogL]

10. It's not necessarily that the weather gets warmer, it gets crazier