World weather patterns

[kstrong]

All I know - 18" of wet heavy snow in October which brought down two trees; virtually nothing in the way of precipitation in metro Denver since then, but the mountains are having record snowfalls (and windfalls from ski revenues!). Go figure. Today, 70°, and I've got the sprinkler going in the back yard trying to breathe life into what's left of the greenery on the railroad. I lost about half my plants thanks to the dry weather, winter dormancy notwithstanding. It'll be interesting to see what actually comes back this spring. Good thing I saved the receipts.

Later,

K

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Capt Bob Johnson

It is cyclical, how else would you explain the fossils of tropical prehistoric animals and birds that have been found in ice encrusted or once ice encrusted areas?

Actually Bob the fossils found in icey Antartica were alive when that continent was actually where where the Indian Ocean is now, when Pangea the supercontinent (all the landmasses had crumpled into each other about 400million years ago to make one big'un) broke up some 200 million years Africa, Asia Europe, Antarctica and India all drifted east While North and South America went west (it split at the mid-Atlantic ridge) While Africa was moving east Antarctica, Australia and India moved more southward, part of this land mss, India, overran the indian crustal plate moved north so fast that within only a few million years it crossed the indian ocean and slammed into Asia with so much force it created the Himilayas! Meanwhile Antarctica moved ever southward into colder latitudes, eventually down below the arctic circle, killing all life there. Eventually milions of years from now it will move back into warmer climates as it moves up into the pacific

OK geology lesson over ..Sorry if its a bit long but I do like the subject![:D]

The problem with sea level rise is that so many cities are in real danger of suffering seasonal or permanent flooding. The artic ice rests on the water so if it melts the sea level doesnt rise, however Antarctic ice is on continental crust, it melts and its adding water to the sea level raising them worldwide. Where in the US New Orleans, New York, most of Florida and long stretches of the Gulf and elsewhere in the US are at or near sea level and if the sea rises a couple feet will see tremendous changes, London is not very high above sea level and has had severe tidal floods in the past, at least it now has a barrier, but Venice in Italy could be devestated, Holland, Bangladesh?

All this extra water coupled with rising global temps puts more energy into the atmosphere creating much more violent weather. This years hurricanne season is predicted to be as bad as last years, I'm sure the Cyclone cycle in the Pacific has produced much more powerfull storms than in the past.

Luckily for us here in L.A. were too far north to worry about the Pacific hurricanes we get off the west coast of Mexico, but if the overall current sea temps of the arctic north pacific current rises, its anyones game how far north they can move.

[Capt Bob Johnson]

It is cyclical, how else would you explain the fossils of tropical prehistoric animals and birds that have been found in ice encrusted or once ice encrusted areas?

Don't want to get washed away, don't build in a New Orleans neighborhood that's 18 feet below sea level! I wouldn't even want to build within 10 feet above sea level. I'm just a couple of miles from the Oceanfront, yet my land is 27 feet above sea level! My thoughts are that they are throwing my good tax money after bad when they rebuild anything that is on land less than 10 feet above sea level. Bulldoze NO under and let it revert to the swamp it was just a short 300 years ago, The only reason it got settled in the first place was as a pirate's hideaway! Remember Jean LaFitte!

Anybody got asbestos suits for sale?

[kimbrit]

Quite right Vic, and being a coastal person I do take an interest in it. Mark is quite right when he calls us arogant, we are when we disregard the health of this planet so a relative few can make mega bucks now and have absolutely no cares at all for the people who will follow on. It's not us now, certainly not me at 54, but the kids I see every day will probably have big problems in 100 years or so, especially if some big land mass ice sheets start going, not exactly Costner's Water World but the 30% land we have will be shrinking. In a time to come the world may well celebrate when all of the fossel fuels have gone, cleaner air for all and the middle eastern gents will be back to owning sand, big empty spaces full of it!
Kim

[vsmith]

Its hard to say what the long term effects will be. Last winter we had 4x normal rain fall this year were under the norm.

Kims comment about the artic ice sheets is true. Remember Greenland got its name because when the Vikings found it, it was very very green with tundra grasses, no ice like in Iceland. it subsequently got colder and killed all the Viking settlers who lived there but stubbornly refused to change their lifestyle to match the changing climate ( is there an object lesson there? )

The real problem sea-level wise if if the Antarctic ice sheets go, we are in deep poo-poo coastal wise.

[markperr]

It seems like every time I get into a discussion about global warming, I find myself in the contrarian viewpoint. However, I live in Ann Arbor, Mi. USA, and for those of you who aren't familiar with my geo-political location, I live in a very liberal town, near one of the most liberal universities in all of the US, the University of Michigan. That said, I offer only this opinion and a link. I think it is extremely arrogant of us as humans to think that we actually have the ability to destroy this planet. Anything that we do that may be detrimental to the Earth's environment will eventually lead to our own destruction as a species and the Earth would eventually heal itself sans humans.
Mt. Pinatubo, in the Phillipines, during it's last eruption sent more hydrocarbons into the air than all of mankind did during the industrial revolution of the preceding 100 years, and Mother Earth srcubbed the atmosphere clean in just under three years.
Weather guessers and environmentalists don't have enough historical data to make most of the claims that they make. The Earth is purported to be over four billion years old. She has survived asteroid collisions and mega volcanic eruptions. We are doing more today than ever before to be more environmentally conscious. There is an entire industry dedicated to reducing toxic emissions and they are going into the air at a far reduced rate than even thirty years ago. In my most humble opinion, this thing is cyclical.

I like this particular website. It looks at things from a scientific perspective with regards to global warming. Enjoy.

Mark

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/

[kimbrit]

Hi Ian,
I think it could well be a bit of both. The world does go through cycles in its weather, ice ages every 10,000ish years or so and I have read that it is unusual for the planet to have 2 ice caps so id the arctic melts it's sea ice anyway, but the antartic has a continent under its ice cap, so we would really feel that. All of the crap we have pumped into the atmosphere in the last (almost) couple of hundred years can't help, remember that every time we run a train a little bit more CO2 goes into the sky from a power station somewhere. I'm really going to go into the lions den here - we have to go nuke to boil the water to power the generators, our options are diappearing quickly.
Cheers,
Kim

[Anonymous]

Normally you would not be intereted in weather as far as model railways are concerned, however we are out in the garden a lot and weather is important as others have opined.

We have seen you poor Americans get the hell knocked out of you by some terrible weather and when i was in Essex last year they were in the middle of a drought, and as everyone knows, England is infamous for its rain, so something might have changed.

We here in land of sunshine have recently just got through one of the hottest summers in 100 years. Last August we had the coldest day for 50 years, it got down to 12 Deg C. Right now we are experiencing incredible storms; with waves up 17 metres high coming in off the normally tranquil Coral Sea.

What do people think ,is global warming having an serious effect on the worlds weather or is this just a cyclic thing ?


Rgds Ian