Can you say global warming? Ongoing drought affects Great Lakes
Lewis DiuguidThe ongoing drought has caused two of the Great Lakes to drop to their lowest levels ever recorded.
The Army Corps of Engineers reports that last month Lake Michigan and Lake Huron were at their lowest level since record keeping began in 1918. Blame it on the lingering drought, gripping the Midwest and global warming.
The drought has reduced rainfall and other precipitation. Evaporation also pulls vast amounts of water from the lakes into the overheated atmosphere.
Lake Superior, Erie and Ontario also are well below normal, The Associated Press reports.
Lakes for recreation and flood control in Missouri have receded so much that some piers stand with no water close to them and boats sit in the cracked earth. Barges on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers are having difficulty getting through because of low water levels.
It is way past time to do something about this global warming problem. The cost in lost commerce will keep rising.
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoHere’s a new word for the ol’ lexicon… “Anecdotal.”
The early 50’s was one of the worst droughts in North American history. It hit the great plains and the southwest the hardest. Rainfall amounts dropped 40% in the first years of this period. Other drought periods, including the most costly in US history, have happened in decades past, including the decade long dust-bowl drought of the high plains, now well known to be a cyclical in nature.
The histrionics involved in calling this drought the result of global warming is staggering. That we could do or could have done anything to prevent it is even more worthy of ridicule. Is MMGW happening? Perhaps (although it is far from settled science), but this drought is not proof of it. Nor was Sandy or Katrina, unless you just desperately want them to.
Reginald Thornton
3 months, 2 weeks agoSorry, but could you please connect the dots between drought and global warming? Yes, I know they’re both about “weather” and “climate”. Try to imagine a reader who thinks critically- now, answer. Thank you.
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks agoRemember as you global warmists always say, you have to look globally. (but you never listen to your own words)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/moscow-russia-crippled-by-historic-snow/2013/02/06/1215424a-7084-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_blog.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100194166/man-made-global-warming-even-the-ipcc-admits-the-jig-is-up/
From our friends at the IPCC:
Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.
Which means:
The admission of strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing changes everything. The climate alarmists can’t continue to claim that warming was almost entirely due to human activity over a period when solar warming effects, now acknowledged to be important, were at a maximum. The final draft of AR5 WG1 is not scheduled to be released for another year but the public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself.
Ah, so the sun is important, especially when the globe warms at times that the sun activity is at it’s maximum. You know, Occum’s Razor. Who would of thought it?
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks agoGeorge Monbiot “Peak oil - I was wrong”
Prof James Lovelock “we don’t know what the climate is doing”
Phil Jones “…this assumes we fully understand the climate system, and I don’t think we do.
Dr James Hansen “The forces that drive long-term climate change are not known with accuracy sufficient to define future climate change”
Prof James Lovelock “The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet”
Prof Phil Jones “as you know there are a lot of other circulation and other influences in the climate system”
Prof Richard Muller “Climategate was a scandal, terrible, it was shameful what they did, the way they hid the data”
Prof James Lovelock “That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened”
Prof Richard Lindzen “The consensus was reached before the research had even begun.”
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks agoModel predictions (global temperature anomaly predictions from 1990 to 2012):
FAR (1990): 0.50 degC SAR (1996): 0.30 degC TAR (2001): 0.39 degC AR4 (2007): 0.37 degC
Actual (as in Fig 1.4, AR5): 0.12-0.16 degC, i.e. less than half of the predicted increase of any of the models.
Phil Cardarella
3 months, 2 weeks agoOK, I give up. Obviously there is no global climate change, since IT SNOWED IN RUSSIA! “It still snows in Russia” is your defense of dumping carbon into the air? Helpful alert if you are planning a rerun of Operation Barbossa, but not otherwise terribly relevant.
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will try to jump out. If you put a frog in a pot of warm water and raise the temperature slowly to a boil, you can cook it.
The same is NOT true of higher animals — who will notice that the temperature is uncomfortable and act accordingly.
Except, apparently, rightwing GOPers.
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks agoPhil shows he can’t read, again. It’s GLOBAL WARMING Phil. Therefore, if I look around the world, the trend should be the same. Not record cold in Europe or record snowfall in Russia.
Quit cherry picking.
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks ago(But then again, we knew he couldn’t read. Just like a contract on a house, right Phil?)
George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months, 2 weeks agoyou can say one thing for this crew at the star… whether it is gun control, global warming, race or citizenship for illegal aliens, they do keep the articles coming…. way to publish libs!!!!
Reginald Thornton
3 months, 2 weeks agoYael, Lewis, Mary, Phil…. they all know the Soros checks will stop if their writing doesn’t continue sliding out non stop. It doesn’t matter that it resembles diarrhea in other ways too.
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks agoNotice how they never have anything to say about Soros, but demonize the Koch brothers. Soros is such a great guy, ask all the jews he help round up as a boy.. oh, sorry you can’t, or how about all those people that lost everything because how he manipulates the market.
Phil Cardarella
3 months, 2 weeks agoOK, let’s try walking you through it:
Global warming causes climate change. That change will not just or always manifest itself through higher temperatures in any given place at every given time, nor will it result in less moisture in every place at any given time. In fact, one of the dangers of climate change is that it will — counterintuitively — cause some places to be a lot colder.
You are confusing weather with climate.
I do have to make one simple observation. Suppose I am wrong. Suppose ALL of the actual scientists not on carbon’s payroll are dead wrong. What have we lost by reducing our reliance on carbon and increasing our use of renewable energy?Germany is. China is clearly determined to lead in renewable energy (yes, while pumping out vast amounts of CO2, I know). Fact is, it is a big payoff for a minor investment; when the sun shines and the wind blows, a huge chunk of Germany is powered by that. When not, then they use other sources.
No one is suggesting that we ban all carbon-based energy. But, burning oil, coal and gas is NOT sacramental. In real cost, renewables are more efficient.
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoWhy is it that there are about 10 posts with links and quotes and yet Phil’s personal logic is supposed to trump it all? Ever notice how you can make 15 points with documentation and he gloms onto one that he thinks his ‘logic’ can poke holes in and he ignores the rest?
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoChina is clearly determined to lead in clean energy.
Wow. Is that even a remotely defensible statement?
JR Beillenhouser
3 months, 2 weeks agoPhil -
If you are wrong, we waste a ton of money on a problem that is not a real problem. Let’s take all of the money being spent on something yet to be proven and instead put it towards drinkable water programs for 3rd world countries. There is a real problem.
Renewables, in their current state, cannot survive without subsudies. Someday, perhaps, they will be able to exist on their own. Until that time, they cost more and take money that could best be spent elsewhere.
Finally, I’m not confusing weather with climate, but you are confusing science with propaganda. Science has a methodology, and Global Warming has yet to even come close to proving it is more than an ill conceived theory. How’s about we wait and determine if there is an issue before we destroy the economy to fix it. Novel idea, huh.
Mark Hastert
3 months, 2 weeks agoOur conservative friends are kind of like a person who get’s diagnosed with cancer, not by one, or two or even a dozen doctors but instead finds a quack that sells them an herbal remedy that they cling to… all the way to their grave.
Global warming/climate change is for real. It’s likely too late to change anything except to find adaptive behaviors to allow us to cope and, when even the thickest heads relent, stop making it worse. We don’t live on a coast so we won’t have to worry about the rising sea levels but sooner or later we’ll have to adapt to a change that will alter not only many of our lives (many of the geezers won’t have to bother) but our children & grand kids who will wonder why Grand Dad was so …… what’s a word for willfully ignorant?
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoWillfully ignorant is what they will call our liberal friends for bankrupting the country and leaving them with the bill, accepting the diminishing of their God-given freedoms in the name of safety and egalitarianism, and allowing the ultimate destruction of western values in exchange for a “multi-culturalism” that includes forced burqas, honor killings and a destroyed work ethic.
How proud you must be.
Reginald Thornton
3 months, 2 weeks agoMark gives away the game with this statement: “It’s likely too late to change anything except to find adaptive behaviors to allow us to cope and, when even the thickest heads relent, stop making it worse”.
I challenge Mark to list even a single program or proposal that will achieve either of his stated outcomes, “allow us to cope” or “stop making it worse”.
Hint: Taxes, or anything containing the word “tax”, do not qualify. Explain how that money would be applied in order to “allow us to cope” or “stop making it worse”.
Preview: Mark will only list programs that inhibit carbon output, but really only force carbon producers to pony up a tax/fine for continuing their behavior- no output change. Also, these programs will already be forcing industry to layoff thousands upon thousands of employees instead of paying up for exapansion plans, leaving them to continue their current production.
In any case, the taxes/fines “allow [elites] to cope” by transferring the wealth to them, without ever “stop[ping] making it worse”.
Mark Hastert
3 months, 2 weeks agoSo I guess Reginald’s and his conservative colleague’s philosophy is: if you can’t completely solve a problem without costing them anything then do nothing at all. It’s a consistent thread in all conservative thought.
Sorry to disappoint you but, one way or another, it’s gonna cost you. You’ll pay to mitigate it or you’ll pay with the changes it will bring to your life or the lives of your descendants. You’ll pay with coastal erosion, poor air quality, damaged ecosystems. All so you can save a few bucks now and continue to foul your own nest and those of others.
Penny wise and pound foolish.
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoYour interest, and the reason this is a cause celebre’ on the left, is in the redistributionist nature of the solution. Your willful ignorance about the destruction of whole communities by leftist policies is evidence of that fact. Liberals are about liberal policies first, the well-being of humans second. How many hundreds of examples of this do you want?
How many 10’s of Billions in American dollars were sought by sub-saharan african countries during the last AGW conference for “mitigation” programs. “Women and Children” hit the hardest, right? AGW is a communist/socialist wet dream; a way to institute massive taxes and redistribution with political cover, irrespective of the harm it causes. The only “green” projects that environmentalists don’t love are ones that actually lower “greenhouse” gases without huge government involvement and feel-good, “save the ducks” warm fuzzies like solar panels. Why do they hate fracking for natural gas when their enviro-nut concerns have been so thoroughly debunked except to Matt Damon?
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoI used to wonder more about AGW, but I remember when I became a thorough skeptic; it was the day I heard Al Gore call it a “settled science” and they started equating skeptics with holocaust deniers. Talk about a group that doesn’t want people looking too closely. Real scientists welcome skepticism and replication. I doesn’t hurt that Gore and his celebrity sycophants are such blatant hypocrites about it either.
Then of course we have the “hockey stick” embarrassment, so many blown predictions (nobody will ever see snow in Britain again) and the exposure of the East Anglia Liars Club. You know who would lose for their whole industry the billions of dollars out there in climate change research dollars, mitigation programs and “green” projects? The dude who proves it is bunk. That’s a powerful incentive, and having seen up close and personal scientific data “interpreted” in ways to keep the flow of funding secure, don’t tell me that doesn’t happen. Scientists love to pay their bills like everyone else. Ask yourself why the CERN cloud study didn’t get more play in a media dedicated to leftist philosophy which includes the dogma of global warming?
No, you AGW bullies like to push skeptics around, using fear-mongering and name-calling as your primary weapons. We’re even racists and have a “sickness” that needs to be treated (want the links?). No, people who are sure of themselves don’t act this way, especially scientists. You might make headway if your other leftist policies made your global warming hokum somehow ‘affordable’, but not when the whole world is under a mountain of debt created by OTHER leftist redistributionist boondoggles.
Reginald Thornton
3 months, 2 weeks agoWow, I wasn’t expecting Mark’s validation. But there is his response, wholly devoid of any plan that will achieve any of the list of alleged consequences. And somehow the list being really, really scary is supposed to compensate (scientifically, of course) for being unable to explain how any programs or other actions might ever hope to avoid any of the list’s scary items. They’re soooo scary, that we should be satisfied with only the hope of having impact. Because, as Mark gave away previously, that would “help us to cope.” Thanks, Mark!
Mark Hastert
3 months, 2 weeks agoSoryy Reg but all the fixes will cost you a buck or two and so you’ve said that you won’t accept any costs I suppose you’ll just have to make do. We can mitigate the impact with carbon reductions but since you rather go to your grave with an extra dollar in your bank account that’s out. We can underwrite scientific research that might help to “clean” the atmosphere but no that’s tax money. we can build seawalls and barriers to mitigate coastal erosion, Opps! more money darn it!
Fact is that you & yours won’t spend a dime to save a dollar so there’s no reason to reason with you. The rest of the world will move on without you.
Matt Henry
3 months, 2 weeks agoConservatives don’t mind spending money on big government projects, even the occasional seawall or carbon mitigation program if it is proven to be necessary. But they don’t like sending it for green energy projects in the congo and on programs that are great vote generators for big government parties but have shown to tried and true in their ability to keep people in poverty, ignorance and illegitimacy. That’s kinda where we draw the line. We don’t like keeping people in shackles in the name of egalitarianism.
He just so desperately wants it to be true. Wouldn’t it be great if all get to suffer? Oh please oh please oh please….
Reginald Thornton
3 months, 2 weeks agoMark, it isn’t a buck or two. Projections of the multi-trillion dollar taxes would create millions more unemployed. Here, in the U.S., where we would be adhering to whatever protocol. Not in China, which has stated repeatedly it isn’t interested in Kyoto or anything resembling it.
So, you’ve misstated the dollar cost by a factor of infinity. You’ve listed all of the scary, scary consequences. And you’ve derided those who disagree with the “science” or who provide evidence disputing its integrity.
Can you puhleeez list a single program or proposal that will diminish the effects of AGW? Pretty please?
George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months, 2 weeks agothe bottom line is that junk science does not warrant economic destruction so a few libs can create winners and certainly losers…
George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months, 2 weeks agoanother example of fascists “knowing” what’s better…
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/06/jail-time-for-food-labels/
Do they ever tire of trying to tell us every damm thing to do????