Global warming it must be true.

[The PIT]

Just had to cut the hedge I can't ever recall doing it March before.

[Nowhere]

Yeah, global warming is a fact - but we don't know exactly how much this is natural process, and how much because of us...

[Dr Mordrid]

Fact, schmackt.

I look at the satellite photos this morning and the Great Lakes are 80% frozen to a depth of 2' or more and I had to use my snowblower on a 3' pile of the white stuff in my driveway just two weeks ago.

Yeah....the world's really warm

I'm beginning to wonder when the global warming freaks will finally accept the fact that they live in the vicinity what is both a flare and a variable star. As such ascribing temperature changes as small as those attributed to mans activities since 1880 (just +1.0 F or + 0.506 C globally) is an exercise fraught with logical minefields.

This becomes extremely obvious when you use the Kelvin temperature scale, which starts at absoute zero, to see the actual percentage of change from 1880 to today. In 1880 the earths average temperature was 287.594 K. Today it's 288.1 K, an increase of 0.506K or ~.0017594%. Wow

Also, those of you hung up on the Kyoto treaty might find this interesting;

One of that treaties primary presumptions is that preserving forests of all kinds will contribute to lowering pollution at the macroscopic level. Not true.

Recent studies out of Canada show that coniferous forests (pine, etc.) add more nitrous oxide (NO) to the atmosphere than all the cars and factories combined.

As such at the macroscopic level NO is the primary precursor of smog and is also a major greenhouse gas.

Gentlemen, start your chain saws

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

We just need more deciduous forest then?

Really this global warming trend will end mighty quick when Yellowstone erupts..

We are all DEAD

[Marshmallowman]

a 0.5 degree does make a difference, you raise the temperature of an area that averages about 0 C and you get ice melting.

0.5 C in 100 years is a temperature change that is large when compared to the previous 50,000 years, unless you are talking catastrophic events like meteorites and super volcanos.

And don't tell me we are not causeing global environmental problmes. Do you live near the edge of an hole in the ozone layer...I do, and this drought we are in doesn't help.

And if its no big deal, why is there a lot of civil engineering projects for low lieing areas, Venice is having real problems they are sinking, and the sea levels are rising.

[Jon P. Inghram]

The worst part about "global warming" will be when the dinosaurs and other giant lifeforms that thrived when the Earth was warmer come back and eat us.

[K6-III]

Thing is, life is more sensitive to variations than some of us choose to accept. Secondarily, it is long-term trends that are to be measured....

Unfortunately, the greenhouse effect operates much like an exponential equation, especially when evaporation of water in equatorial zones is taken into account. This means that by the time you feel the effects tremendously, it may already be too late...

[The PIT]

You've also got to remember that the effects are not averaged across the glode so some areas may got colder due to shifts in ocean currents etc.
I still remember them talking about the next ice age at the end of the 70's.

[Nowhere]

Marshmallowman, we are not causing them alone for sure - maybe we're accelerating them a little or more, but the popular rumor (well...one of many actually) is that this is mostly natural process...global warmings were not uncommon in the past...

The PIT, I hear that even now; something wrong is starting to happen in the Atlantic...something that caused previously ice ages...and higher (!) globe temperature is one of the thing that's causing this...

[The PIT]

Is this the thoery of melting polar ice shutting the gulf stream down ???

[Technoid]

something like that......

[The PIT]

Well we could get some proper snow again if that happened.

[Nowhere]

Hmmm...at the last but one ice age the ice border was just around the place I live...I'll have a great view from my window if that would happen again (pressuming that scrat won't interfere )
On the other hand, if it will be like last one...ehhh...I'll see nothing; and if like the one that was before the last but one...I'm in trouble ;P

[The PIT]

Well it would be interesting to see how Man would cope with a new ice age.

[Nowhere]

And good exercize for europeans before yellowstone will go BOOOM.

The question is...wchich one of these will be sooner :|