Why would I say that? Why would I demean hard working climatologists everywhere? Why? Because things are turning out to be far worse than they originally predicted, at least with respect to the rate of glaciers melting in Greenland:
Greenland’s glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly Earth’s oceans will rise over the next century, scientists said yesterday.
The new data come from satellite imagery and give fresh urgency to worries about the role of human activity in global warming. The Greenland data are mirrored by findings from Bolivia to the Himalayas, scientists said, noting that rising sea levels threaten widespread flooding and severe storm damage in low-lying areas worldwide.
Twice as fast as predicted? Oh those liberal commie evilutionistic scientists got it all wrong again! Too bad for us their worse case prediction wasn’t even close to how bad it really is out there in our big, wide, overheated world:
The scientists said they do not yet understand the precise mechanism causing glaciers to flow and melt more rapidly, but they said the changes in Greenland were unambiguous — and accelerating: In 1996, the amount of water produced by melting ice in Greenland was about 90 times the amount consumed by Los Angeles in a year. Last year, the melted ice amounted to 225 times the volume of water that city uses annually.
“We are witnessing enormous changes, and it will take some time before we understand how it happened, although it is clearly a result of warming around the glaciers,” said Eric Rignot, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The Greenland study is the latest of several in recent months that have found evidence that rising temperatures are affecting not only Earth’s ice sheets but also such things as plant and animal habitats, coral reefs’ health, hurricane severity, droughts, and globe-girdling currents that drive regional climates. […]
“The implications are global,” said Julian Dowdeswell, a glacier expert at the University of Cambridge in England who reviewed the new paper for Science. “We are not talking about walking along the sea front on a nice summer day, we are talking of the worst storm settings, the biggest storm surges . . . you are upping the probability major storms will take place.”
Yes bigger storms. More severe and unstable weather patterns. Puts last year’s hurricane season in a whole new light, doesn’t it? I type those words while wind gusts outside my home reach upwards of 70 mph today, the middle of February, in upstate New York. Where temperatures today, in February, are rapidly plummeting from near 60 degrees farenheit, to ultimately below 20 degrees some time tonight.
Not that I think there’s any connection, mind you. Heaven’s no! Wouldn’t want to be labeled an environmentalist scaremonger by good folks like Michael Crichton. I’m sure it’s just God’s will my town has been turned into a wind tunnel today.
After all, what other answer is there in Bush’s America?
So, here’s a question for you:
Why do the people who assert that global warming is not a result of human activity think this is a good thing?
Would it help bring on Armageddon? Oh, wait. I guess George is working on that regardless of global warming.
I got it now. The short-term profits are great and the oil mongers will die with the most toys.
I was more thinking in terms of “Great, this is natural. That means if we want to continue existing, we have to work that much harder to reverse it.”
You know I was actually thinking about all this last night from reading a book about ancient Egyptian times and then watching a History Channel show about the rise of Christianity in the vacuum of the fall of the Roman Empire.
IF, as I posited in a comment a couple of days ago, everything falls to shit in our lifetime and there is a power vacuum in the US, it is really F-in scary that the Dominionists and the right-wing militia types might be those best prepared to fill the void. Think Katrina on a grand scale with only “faith-based” solutions.
there is no other answer. You have obviously offended God (as I have, too, because it was 73 in the Ozarks yesterday).
Outside Bush’s America, there are wind farms, solar cars, tidal power and other marvels. When will we come out of the cave and look around?
Yes, I think it was the lowering my thermostat to 63 this winter. God doesn’t like it when we try to conserve energy, obviously.
I watched the Daily Show on Tuesday night, I believe and he had on a guy who had written a book about the American addiction to oil. In their whole talk, they NEVER ONCE mentioned wind or solar power or biofuels like ethanol. I could not fucking believe it. It seemed that the author wouldn’t have been open to them anyway, and maybe that’s why they had already decided not to talk about them. But it shows that neither the author nor Jon Stewart were taking seriously the scope of the problem.
All that fresh water flowing into the North Atlantic could halt the flow of the Gulf Stream in a “The Day After Tomorrow” sudden-change scenario.
It got up near 70 degrees yesterday and tomorrow there are predictions of snow and sleet followed by another warm week. WHeeee! It’s a weather roller-coaster!
I guess I might become the owner of lakefront cabin after all…
I doubt saying I told you so to all of the idiots in 40 years will hold any joy, but on the positive side I live 100 miles north of Fort Walton Beach Florida so I may have a gulf-front home by then. On the negative side, I can’t even imagine what hurricane season is going to be like by then with all of the warmer water fueling more monster storms than ever. The entire coast should probably be deserted, though I guess there will always be a few million fundamentalists who don’t believe God would ever hurt them. We have lots of those already in Alabama.
I just hope you’re more than 100′ (33 m) above sea level, since that is one of the numbers that frequently gets bandied about for a rise in sea level in the event of a polar ice melt-down.
I live in a hilly area about 50 miles NW of the highest point in Florida so I’m pretty sure we are more than a Cheney gunshot above sea level. I guess I will find out for sure within my lifetime.
We here in the heartland could have ocean front property!
Turning point warning as Greenland’s ice disappears
I re-read the Wapo article cited in the dairy and unless I missed it, very strange there’s no mention of Jim Hansen, the scientist ‘Bush tried to gag’
from his interview in the The Independent (UK)
posted online, 02.17, 8:00 PM EST
Climate Change: On the edge by Jim Hansen
“Greenland ice cap breaking up at twice the rate it was five years ago, says scientist Bush tried to gag”
Kudos Mr. Hansen. But it’s an outrage that you can only be heard here via the UK/EU media. Further confirmation we have a prostrate (SCM) state-controlled media.
Glad to see this diary on the front page. We may be past the point of no return on warming. Bush is still collecting information. Maybe if we lose the Gulf Coast next hurricane season they will have all the info they need. Then maybe bush and fucking cheney could acknowledge that there is a major problem here. more sins against future generations. With the debt, our children will have no money to fix this problem. God I hate these fuckers.
God I hate these fuckers.
Me too.
In the meantime Exxon’s shareholders are doing just swell. What evil bastards!!
Well good news from the EPA – they don’t plan on intentionally using poor pregnant women for insecticide testing as guinea pigs. However poor kids and their parents are fair game.
All the fake science that disputes global warming is pretty much funded by Exxon.
Look – I don’t have to tell anybody here just what these fucks are doing. I really, really hate these sons of bitches. Scum. My solace for now is to be in your esteemed company..
Kudos more for keeping this issue on the front page where it belongs, as there is no other more important.
This is about as depressing as it gets for news, because the implications are enormous, not only for accelerating global heating, or even bigger storm surges and bigger storms, but for the world’s supply of fresh water.
Again, I believe it’s imperative to think of the climate crisis and act on it in two ways: first, what’s going to be necessary in the short term to deal with its effects, this year, next year and for the next decade; and second, steps to try to slow it down so the earth as we know it has a chance to survive beyond this century.
It’s important to do both. Everyone needs to know that alternate energy isn’t going to stop what happens in the next ten years. But that if we only concentrate on mitigating and protecting what is happening in this decade, we will destroy the future. That’s what sustainable energy etc. is for.
Deal with the ongoing and accelerating Climate Crisis now. Prevent a farther future of Earth=Venus now. Two sets of actions that both must be done now.