I hope not...


My answer - Warmer.

The evidence says climate change is happening, and the overall trend is warmer global temperatures. Regional weather patterns may be more extreme overall, but weather is not climate.

and that translates into more and bigger storms and wider swings in seasonal climate.

I'd say the pattern is holding true to predictions, just happening a little faster than anticipated.

Cold and hot, wet and dry, stormy and calm.

The way human induced warming and climate change works
is that these occurrences get more extreme and more
frequent.

There is also the way that polar warming can affect ocean currents
and the jet stream, along with the way air moves from land to sea
and vice versa. These occurrences are causing the major problems
experienced nowadays across the world; and each problem is different:
hurricane like weather and flooding in the UK; extreme cold across
a major part of the USA; extreme high temperatures and drought in
Australia; and so on.

We see storms crossing the Atlantic to Europe way more often and the temperature is fluctuating with extreme heat and extreme cold.

i would think regionally cold winters would be a result of arctic melting. hotter summer means more melting means more cold water entering the oceans means cold winter...?...not a scientist.

We see record high temperatures during the summer months and record low blizzards during the winter months. We see hurricanes and tornados and forest fires.

That is part of what was predicted, These are more dramatic weather events, which are separate from climate.

Is it possible for the earth to do both, get colder and hotter at the same time? Or is it impossible?

Overall the planet is getting warmer, this is putting more energy into the atmosphere which is leading to more dramatic weather events, such as those storms, and droughts. Weather and climate are two different critters. To simplify this, climate is long term change, while weather is what you see every day. Long term you will see more dramatic weather events.

In my totally unscientific opinion, I think the Earth is getting more hot than it is getting colder. Simply because of the law of gravity. We are naturally inclined to be pulled toward the Sun, I would think?

Gravity has nothing to do with this, While we are getting pulled in, the planet has a speed and centrifugal force is in perfect balance, keeping the planet at a stable orbit. Yes the orbit is not completely circular, so during the winter it is closer to the sun, (in the northern part of the planet, north of the equator), but it is tilted away from the sun.

However, if the universe is still expanding, including the distance our Earth is from the Sun, then the opposite would be true. We would be getting colder climate change. In the scales of humans we will not even notice, without advanced equipment

In my unscientific opinion, the cold arctic fronts we are experiencing are caused more by the rotation of the Earth on its axis and the switching of the our poles, which usually happen over the period of centuries. The cold artic fronts were predicted by climate experts and are partly due to more energy in the atmosphere.

Is climate change more than just a theory? What other proof do we have other than our own experiences?

There are literally oodles of research on this. I recommend a visit to Scripps Oceanography museum, they have extremely easy to follow exhibits on this. Or your local natural history museum. Alternatively, there are good programs on places like the science channel from time to time, or you could read scientific american on the subject, or Discovery Magazine.

However, if the universe is still expanding, including the distance our Earth is from the Sun, then the opposite would be true. We would be getting colder climate change.

In the scales of humans we will not even notice, without advanced equipment

The distance between the earth and the sun is not changing as a result of the universe expanding. Neither is the interstellar distances between stars in our galaxy. The expansion of the universe has no effect on gravitationally bound systems*.

*with the caveat that if the big rip theory is true, then eventually in the far far flung future, the solar system, the earth, and our very atoms will be ripped apart, but if this were to be the case, we would start to see it's effects locally only a short time before our doom.

I am going from memory here.

But it's a damn sight sooner than either the big crunch or the heat death of the universe

On the other hand, if you wanna get really paranoid about the death of the universe, google "vacuum metastability event"

I am sure you have read the story of Carl Sagan and the old lady who asked whether they sold insurance for when the Sun goes dark.

That was pretty much exactly right. Close enough anyway. I can't tell you how tickled I am to be able to say that about one of your posts. Nice job.

There is absolutely no doubt about that. However, one result is greater instability of weather patterns, so we are seeing some extreme weather events, some of which put some cold into places where it doesn't normally occur.

However, I am right in the middle of this arctic blast, which is being hyped by the media as some sort of rare condition. When I was growing up, we had a week of subzero temps EVERY SINGLE YEAR. The last 20 years, that has become increasing uncommon.

I did write that.

As to this cold spell, which is a weather event, it is a more dramatic weather event, which comes from increasing energy stored in the atmosphere, due to a heating atmosphere. That would be climactic change. And while you freeze, it was in the 70s today, in January, beach weather. Ten degrees above normal.

A lot of people confuse climate and weather, but both of those are completely separate from the question of warming. I know you understand that. I'm just suggesting that we should always be abundantly clear. The planet is warming significantly. Period. Full stop. There is no doubt whatsoever about that.

How that affects climate is not always as predictable, and weather events within the scope of climate change are even less predictable. But there can be no question about the overall building-up of heat on our planet.

I have to water every day. This is supposed to be our rainy season and our cold season. Now maybe saying drier rather than warmer should be the measure we should be using.

Simply put, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That means it will trap heat in the atmosphere. Human activity has increased its proliferation in the atmosphere by 40% in the last 150 years. The atmosphere is warming.

What you observe is weather. It's cold in the winter. Hot in the summer. Climate is a longer term trend, usually calculated in thirty year rolling mean to iron out "noise" variations. Its advance is chaotic, but its increase is hard to deny. (Though there are those who do.)

Your concepts of astronomy are a bit off. For one, the earth is always falling toward the sun. That's what keeps its orbit "stable."

Here's a good site for information. http://www.skepticalscience.com/

--imm

so some places get warmer and others get colder, although the average temperature goes up

And the hydrologic cycle is a major mechanism for restributing heat in the atmosphere. As the Earth gets warmer, on average, the atmosphere carries more water, so when warm air meets cool air there's more precipitation. The upshot is that more intense storms are expected

The planet is overall getting warmer there is no doubt about that, but it is not something you experience directly. What you experience are the effects of that warming which is more frequent and more violent storms, more extreme weather patterns, and changes in local climates. Some places get hotter some get colder.

It bugs the shit outta me that "do you believe in evolution", or "do you believe in global warming" are perfectly legitimate questions to ask, but "do you believe that a bearded white guy sits on a cloud and micromanages people's lives?" will bring out the "we have to respect all views" police.

It is written is stone.

Stone is passe.

Even as a figure of speech.

Sad nobody knows sarcasm anymore.

Global Warming extremists



Global Warming Irony



New England snowstorm

.....and contrary to popular opinion, individual weather events really have no bearing on reality either way(that's right, any lurking deniers: one winter storm does not disprove warming!).

However, though, with that said, every bit of evidence we have today tells us that the planet is indeed warming.

It's measured. The exact effects of that warming trend is up for debate up to a point, but shrinking ice caps and more extreme weather (including periods of extreme cold and severe winter storms) were a couple predictions made years ago that have been coming true. Also inspired an over the top hollywood movie that took the winter superstorm idea to an extreme, but I can't recall the name right now :-P Took an excellent course on this stuff as an elective several years ago.

I accept that consensus as the best explanation for the changes in climate. I will consider other explanations depending on the evidence.

Being an agnostic, I don't believe in global warming.

Despite the popular narrative, faith, political leanings, or just plain old wishful thinking have nothing to do with global climate change. It is real, we are accelerating it, and the people that matter are not going to do anything about it.

Secondly, the earth is getting neither hotter nor colder to any significant degree, the terribly thin layer on top of the earth that we live in is what is changing and it is getting both hotter and colder depending on where you are, it is also getting wetter and drier. Overall, the average temperature is going up, but that doesn't mean that Washington is going to become a tropical paradise or that Phoenix is going to spontaneously combust.

The bottom line is that all the weather is becoming more extreme and local climates are rapidly changing and the consequences of that are potentially disastrous.

Every winter we see the same ideas pop up. Parts of the planet regularly experience temperature swings that cycle above and below the freezing point of water. That will continue to be the case for a very, very long time in terms of human lifetimes.

The globe as a whole is warming. Very rapidly in terms of the historical planetary climate record. It is already having consequences. It will continue to have consequences. Those consequences will become more and more evident, and harder and harder to deal with from a civilization and ecosystem viewpoint during the coming decades and centuries.

Will it be disastrous for you? Probably not. Your children? Maybe. Your great-great grandchildren? Yes. Will your third or fourth generation descendants be able to stop or reverse it if we do nothing over the next century? I would put money on No.

In ordinary conversation theory can mean a hypothesis or mere speculation, but scientifically a theory has to have some basic tenets

a theory is something that is developed to explain a large number of observations.

so your question, is climate change more than just a theory, makes no sense. it is a theory developed to explain and understand multiple scientific observations. it not mere speculation/guesswork etc

when people dismiss climate change/evolution as "just a theory" it literally makes no sense scientifically.

here is a link that helps state this in a more cogent way: http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

Surface temperatures are probably rising steadily if slightly due to climate change. But rising temps could actually lead to parts of the planet becoming much cooler than they are now (desalination of the Atlantic heat conveyor due to fresh water ice melt).

As far as gravity, it's my understanding that the earth is actually pulling away from the sun, not being pulled toward it. However, when our sun dies in about 5-billion years, it will expand to a size that will swallow up our little planet, burning it to a crisp.

The Earth was extremely hot billions of years ago, when the surface consisted of molten rock, and it's been much cooler during ice ages. None of that really bothers the planet. It goes on its way. What gets bothered is life on the planet, and in our case, human life. Were we not around waiting to be made extinct, none of it would matter.

My understanding is that if you include water temperatures, or if you look on a multi-decade timescale, it's getting significantly warmer, but that if you only look above sea-level over the last decade or so things are much less clear-cut.

That said, I'm far from an expert on this.

I can't remember the program I saw this on, or the mechanism... or the time scale (wealth of information here, I know), but on... SOMETHING (I want to say Nova) they talked about how one of the possible outcomes of global warming was a "snowball Earth" scenario, basically a global, self-perpetuating ice-age. Has anyone ever heard of this? Any insight? Or am I hallucinating again?

it depends on the time scale and significance. For example:

Timescale Trend
(BP)
----------- -------
~100 ka warming
~20 ka warming
~10 ka cooling
~5 ka cooling
~1 ka cooling
500 a warming
300 a warming
100 a warming
10 a flat (shifting to cooling at the multidecadal and likely multicentennial time scale)

Yes, to some degree. While listening to Tom Hartman yesterday on WCPT, he explained a bit about polar shift, and how the "jet stream" has been weakened.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/04/16/1867371/video-explains-how-loss-of-arctic-ice-weakens-jet-stream-amplifies-extreme-weather/

This is probably more than theory, it's scientific.

which is evidence of earth's past.
I watched a video produced by either NOAA or NASA once that alluded to the concept of the earth's poles shifting from north to south. I did find this video though.

Weather extremes can occur with polar shift.

This video is really good. Our 10th. planet.

Pretty basic rundown...

Global Warming Q&A...

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=83341&tid=3622&cid=13366

is going to take me awhile to read, thank you for posting it and will read it in good time.

I too am concerned about pollutants in the air we breathe, I also am concerned with the ways oils are extracted from the earth and how those might be polluting our aquifers. My parents lived in Southern Illinois and Marathon oil was pumping water and chemicals into the ground to release oil deposits, this was way back in the 1970's, and I was always worried about them drinking polluted water from their well. I used to bring them bottled water I purchased at my post exchange when I'd visit.

It is possible that the Earth would be getting colder, based upon diminished sunspot activity (reminiscent of that which triggered the "little ice age" around the 1600s to 1700s), except that CO2 emissions are forestalling this to some extent. Of course this does not mean that we should continue merrily pumping CO2 into the atmosphere because then when the sunspot activity gets going again we will have serious problems.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24512-solar-activity-heads-for-lowest-low-in-four-centuries.html#.Usv_ArR0nHc

generally considered as the most influential factor on climate change. IMO, AGW is exaggerated or insignificant at the best. The certainty is fake and bullied. It's not a conspiracy. It's simply profiteering and ironically, no significant reductions in CO2 emissions are achieved by any proposed or implemented policy. It's very liberal/democratic to be skeptical of the AGW consensus science.

Not only is the 'remedy' worse than the disease, there's no serious let alone 'catastrophic' disease.

Period. I believe that man has an impact on the earth and has contributed to those changes.

The earth is changing, as it is wont to do, as it has always done, and always will.

At some point people will cease to evolve... and soon enough, we'll be gone. Assuming the climate is hospitable enough to support life, another race of (presumably) intelligent beings will take our place.

I like George Carlin's take on this... "there is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are fucked up..." "...the earth can shake us off like a bad case of fleas"

Why is this so hard to comprehend?

That is very clear. Future generations will just have to deal with it, if possible.

The climate on earth has always been changing and always will change.

The amount of gasses we send into the atmosphere has to have some sort of impact. We need to limit the amount we send into the atmosphere.

a believer in climate change.

Whether colder or warmer, I'm still not real sure of.


But yeah...there's something weird going on.

Think of a clock pendulum that was quietly and gently swaying back and forth. Now grab it and wildly throw it to one side. The result is it will swing wildly from one side to the other. That is one way to envision what is going on

.. though predictable.

This thread is just ... wow.

I want to buy hatrack a drink and cry on his shoulder.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=42682

That pretty much settles it for me, its not a matter of what I "believe".

Whether I believe it or not will not change that fact.

The warming causes extremes in the climate.