Osler's Razor

Yes, I think that the MidAtlantic and Northeast are supposed to get more precipitation and stormy weather and under one theory of global warming. It's been windy as all get out in DC for the last few days.

And yes, I see that I must now try to keep my comments moderate.
 

Absolutely. The term "global warming" is scientifically accurate becuase it is referring to the average global temperatures.

The term "climate change" might be a better term b/c it really indicates what is happening. Global warming,in addition to raising the average global temperature, is wreaking havoc with global weather patterns, which can certainly result in colder weather at times. Most climate models actually predict that.

Futhermore, there are certain parts of the globe that could see their average tempearature drop quite a bit. If the ice caps keep melting like they are predicted to, all that cold water will cool the oceans in certain places and its thought that the obliteration of the gulf stream could result. If that happens, the UK and a lot of Nothern Europe is in big trouble. England is at the same latitude as Siberia but its the warmer air from the gulf stream that keeps it from looking like Siberia.
 

I don't know if the cold weather is consistent with global warming. But, my personal belief is that there is no such thing as global warming. The credibility of those knowledgeable people claiming global warming is seriously undermined (at least in my view) because those were the same people claiming global cooling not so many years ago. I personally think that any "global warming" is due to weather patterns rather than Greenhouse Effects or other. The weather trends we are seeing now may just be one part of a cyclical weather pattern that has a period that is too long to recognize. I have some explanations for this, but I may be completely wrong on all of it. Just my 2 cents, though.
 

Yes. Global warming first causes warmer temps in general. But the warm air/water in turn has a domino effect throughout our atmosphere and seas.

Some notes, some are cited, some are not, some are from a class I've taken in the past.
But for a quick reply they'll do.

(1) The jet stream, something that influences climate greatly in North America. see: http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/health.html

(2) As sea currents flow generally from more salty, colder, arctic to less salty, warmer temperate waters the place where cold fronts and warm fronts collide change from where they usually occur.

(3) I know wikipedia may not be the /best/ source, but for some support its sometimes helpful.

"An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including a flooding of coastal cities, an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, reduction in agricultural yields due to changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation, increases in the ranges of disease vectors, reduced summer streamflows, further melting of glaciers, and species extinctions." see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

(4) If oceans rise 1 degree the rate of hurricane formation increases in relation.

its, as far as I can tell, at least somewhat scholarly--an important quote: "A warmer globe would likely result in the polar jet stream's retreating towards higher latitudes; in the Northern Hemisphere the climate belt would move North (Lamb 1972, p. 117-118; Giles 1990). "

In any case, global warming's effect is broader than just a warmer climate, at least in the opinion of many scientists.
 

Absolutely. Global warming is, well, global! The average temperature of the entire planet is slowly rising. Local temperatures do their usual seasonal dance, and are subject to all of the usual random and not-so-random influences to which weather is subject. One of those not-so-random factors is ocean currents, the shifting of which can have counter-intuitive effects as they carry heat from one place to another. One of the anticipated effects of climate change is more extreme weather, in several senses.
 

I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" last week, so I'm certain I'm 100% qualified to answer this question.
Global warming occurs because when there's more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That CO2 thickens our atmosphere so that more of the sun's rays, which normally reflect off the surface of the planet back out to space, are instead trapped in our atmosphere. As I understand it, though our average temperatures will increase, that change isn't enough to disrupt our weather patterns in a very significant way (at least, not for a while). So maybe the weather we are experiencing would have happened the same way if global warming wasn't happening, it just would have been slightly colder.
The real danger of global warming comes with the melting of ice shelfs and glaciers at the poles. Not only will this raise the sea levels worldwide, displacing millions, the introduction of that much fresh water into our saltwater oceans can have a dramatic effect on ocean currents. The last time something like this happened was at the end of the last Ice Age, when the glaciers which covered North America melted (leaving our Great Lakes) and all that fresh water flowed into the Atlantic. This event stopped the counter-clockwise stream of currents between North America and Europe, which THEN affected the weather and sent Europe into a "mini-Ice Age" for 1000 years or so. This change took place in about a ten year span.
SO, global warming could have a dramatic effect on weather patterns (aside from a slight rise in temperature), but that would probably not happen until much more ice has melted (but don't worry, it's well on its way!).
I apologize for any scientific inaccuracies in the above comment. I'm no scientist; this is just my understanding of the science of global warming.
 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2655929

This explains it pretty well.
 

Yes. Its not a short type but basically that global warming messes up all types of weather patters. The weather is much more extreme basically but not necessarily just always hotter. Google it
 

I certainly don't qualify as knowledgeable, but maybe it relates to why scientists say we're going to get more hurricanes? Weather patterns are just shifting radically and tending towards heat, but not always. I'm just kind of piecing that together from things I've heard though.

Obligatory Futurama quote:

Fry: This snow is great! I'm glad global warming never happened.
Leela: Actually, it did. Thank God nuclear winter canceled it out.
 

I'm not that knowledgeable, but I'm sure the global warming folks are more concerned with trends in climate--i.e. all those warm days around the cold ones would trump the couple weeks of cold weather right now.

Then again, I don't really believe in global warming, either--supposedly climate warms up every hundred years or so? BID. Messy mess.
 

Don't worry about explanations. Just believe what we say.
 

Hmmm... you guys do know some stuff about all of this. I think part of my own confusion, now that I look at it, has to do with the greenhouse effect v. global warming. The greenhouse effect, as I understand it, was the "ozone hole" caused in part by aerosol sprays. That got reversed, apparently, but that is different than the general trend to global warming, which is caused by other things.
 

Not related to global warming, but to watching the TV news of the VA Tech shootings: we are getting all the news over here and my students are talking about it. I only started watching TV news this morning, two days later, because I knew it would make me upset (and it has; it's REALLY hard to watch, having a home in Virginia still and having been to that campus.)

But people are talking about it just as much in Europe, and evidently all over the world, as they must be in the States. There is definitely a widespread perception that the US is a dangerous place to be. Not necessarily a rational notion, but it's spread by these kinds of horrible, senseless incidents of gun-induced violence.
 

I have no doubts that we are in the midst of climate change, but I think STP is right, climate change is nothing new.

I've read taht palm trees grew in England at one point in the past 500 years... (Yes, I may be pulling that one out of thin air... no evidence at my fingertips, but I am pretty confident about this).

And according to ice drilling in the arctic, the planet goes through massive shifts every 10,000 years or so... and we're at the 10,000 year shift.

The questions are how much of this is caused by human beings and what, if anything, can we do about it?

The Atlantic actually had a piece last month about who the winners and losers would be in a globally warmed world.