Fact vs Fiction on Climate Change

From the Union of Concerned Scientists (www.ucsusa.org):

Fact vs. Fiction on Climate Change

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We've just had the coldest day in June -- so much for global warming!

Fiction: Just look at X: it's the coldest day/month/year on record ... or: Region X has cooled by Y°F over the past two years! There is no global warming!

Fact: Statements like the one above are deliberate attempts by climate contrarians to confuse and mislead the public. It's an attempt to disprove the reality of global warming with a cold weather anomaly. This is not only scientific bogus, comparing apples and oranges, but outright dishonesty. Weather is the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place, defined by variables such as temperature, moisture, wind, and barometric pressure. It is highly variable from day to day. By contrast, climate describes long-term weather patterns, with average temperatures and precipitation totals as well as typical occurrences of climatic extremes (such as normal dry periods or tropical storms) being used to characterize the climate for a particular region. This distinction is very important. Averages are always made up of numbers differing from the mean. Global warming is about the average going up. Over time this will make extreme colds become less likely.



Oh, what's a few degrees?

Fiction: A few degrees temperature increase won't matter much, and besides, warmer is better -- fewer cold-related deaths, longer growing seasons, lower heating bills. How many people actually notice the difference between 86 and 88.5°F?

Fact: Considering that in some regions people experience large daily temperature ranges (20-30°F), climate skeptics try to convince the public that global warming by a few degrees is nothing to worry about. This is another version of deliberately confusing weather and climate (see above). A small increase in the average temperature, however, obscures extremes and patterns of warming that are quite troubling: nighttime temperatures increase more than daily averages; there are already and will be more extreme heat but less extreme cold events; poleward latitudes warm more than other areas, etc. While the benefits of warming pointed out in the skeptics argument are certainly among the potential impacts of climate change, the potential negative impacts -- such as heat-related illnesses and deaths, increased heat stress for crops, greater energy needs for cooling etc. -- are strategically omitted. Moreover, it bears emphasis that the difference in global average temperature between the last ice age and the present day is about 9°F! This puts the IPCC's projected range of climate change-related global average temperature increases of 2.5-10.4°F in an entirely different light.

(snip)

More at: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageID=498

There is not much the GOP will not lie about if there is a current dollar that can be made -

I once respected the GOP as the small gov, no deficits, meet limited needs via Federal level and keep Federal tax low as you depend on States to provide most needs party.

Now post Reagan they are just the greed with excuses party. And the US Media could not think if their life depended on it - they just reprint the GOP handouts and consider any disagreement as political, and any context or lie exposure to be the job of the other political party - truth telling is not their job.

Indeed when the GOP lies and calls Gore a liar, it is not the Media';s job to note that the GOP is lying.

Fox news ethics, Fox News fair and balanced - All news in the US govern by Corporate and business ethics as put out by only a dozen corporated board rooms and implemented by editors that have no standards other than "corporate standards". 1984 has arrived.

The waters in the Maine Gulf warmed up enought to have a new sea food in it. It was just one or two degrees. The ice fields in Alaska are doing things they have never done before. Melting faster than building up and this year I read the snows on an African mt. are almost gone. Something is going on or is this par for all of history. We keep getting warmer.

That is why our current climate is called the holocene interglacial. As I recall the warming noted in the Maine Gulf was actually traced to meander of the Gulf Stream which transports warm Gulf of Mexico waters north along the Atlantic coast of North America and provides a climate more hospitable than normally found at that high latitude.

For REP. nothing is ever wrong in Bubble Land!