Thursday, December 18, 2008

Because "predictable" is their middle name.


Via BCL, we learn of snow in Vegas, which will naturally inspire truly stupid people who don't understand that "climate change" means extreme weather changes in both directions to conclude that global warming is a laughable hoax.

Ah, right on cue.
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15 comments:

Mark Richard Francis said...

Furthermore, weather isn't climate: Climate is weather over about 30 years.

11:53 AM
CanuckRover said...

This is all so confusing. If it stops snowing in Las Vegas are we right again? How about if it goes above 0 degrees here in Ottawa on Christmas Eve? It's like how when I jump up it proves that gravity doesn't exist.

12:22 PM
Niles said...

It just snowed in Vegas to let all the snowbird Canucks run around in shorts and Ts shocking the natives, all the while snorting "parkas? We don't need no steenking parkas! You call this cold??!!"

You know it's true.

1:42 PM
Noni Mausa said...

Yeah.

I compare it to throwing a rock into a shallow wading pool. If it's lowered in slowly (several thousand years) the water surface rises slowly and smoothly. If it's tossed in (industrial revolution onwards) then there will be both highs and lows, and much messiness.

Noni

2:18 PM
The Seer said...

According to WatherUnderground,the normal low in Las Vegas this time of year is 2. (In degrees, it's 36.) The Las Vegas low last night was O (in degrees, 32.) Hence, "snow." Two or four degrees below normal does not look to me like evidence, of anything.

2:46 PM
mikmik said...

Yup! This is getting rediculous here in Edm. Winters are getting shorter but when we get winter, it is colder and windier.
Never remember summer getting many, if any, days above 30C but now we get weeks of it.

2:48 PM
Unknown said...

2008 temperature summary and spin:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/2008-temperature-summaries-and-spin/

3:01 PM
pierre poutine said...

Meanwhile, "Scientists have found the first unequivocal evidence that the Arctic region is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world at least a decade before it was predicted to happen.

"Climate-change researchers have found that air temperatures in the region are higher than would be normally expected during the autumn because the increased melting of the summer Arctic sea ice is accumulating heat in the ocean. The phenomenon, known as Arctic amplification, was not expected to be seen for at least another 10 or 15 years and the findings will further raise concerns that the Arctic has already passed the climatic tipping-point towards ice-free summers, beyond which it may not recover."

www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/arctic-melt-passes-the-point-of--no-return-1128197.html

wv: penguill

4:43 PM
harebell said...

Yeah I noticed that there was nothing on her site about the fact that up until 2 weeks ago we could have still been playing soccer outdoors in Alberta, albeit on brown grass.
That's the trouble when idiots think that the plural of anecdote is data.

5:44 PM
liberal supporter said...

Noni, that's a good analogy. I've been trying to think of one so simple that even those who are being wilfully obtuse won't be able to act like it is too high falutin' an explanation.


Right now, it is in the 20s (C) in Australia, yet it is -20 in places here. Much of that variation is caused by the earth's tilt and how much the air moves mixing it up.

The reason scientists called it "warming" is because temperature is the standard way of measuring the amount of heat energy contained in an object. So the earth being heated by the sun will radiate some of that away. If the rate of heat loss is slowed, the temperature will rise to a new equilibrium.

If the earth now contains more heat energy, there is more energy at the surface to move air around, so more storms or at least more wind. More wind will make it more likely that unusual local temperatures will be seen, either higher or lower than typical. But it is all driven by an overall increase in the earth's energy, measured by temperature and thereby called warming.

I want to devise an analogy that describes that.

6:04 PM
Patrick Ross said...

Hmmm.

People like you used to call it, quite explicitly, "global warming".

Some people, in fact, still do.

6:13 PM
liberal supporter said...

It is called "warming" because the amount of energy retained by the earth is increasing, and the measure of that energy is average temperature. More energy can mean more wind. But measured temperature may only rise by a small amount, and not evenly everywhere. "Climate change" is a more accurate term for the effects, but the basic mechanism is still increased retained energy, measured as average temperature.


Some people, in fact, still do believe that a picture of a thermometer in Saskatchewan is representative of the entire 148 million square km of the surface of the earth.

Strangely enough, it is going to be 29C in Perth Australia tomorrow. How do you account for that when it is so cold here?

6:51 PM
CC said...

Dear LS:

Please don't waste too much time trying to educate Twatrick on climatology. He's still working on how many sides there are to a triangle.

7:00 PM
sooey said...

Wow. Climate change deniers have really fucked up the economy, eh?

7:15 AM
liberal supporter said...

If you have lived in rural areas, you may have had a propane refrigerator. It doesn't use any electricity. It burns fuel and the burner feels hot if you put your hand near it. Yet somehow, the inside of the fridge is cold.

How can a flame make something cold? When you understand that, you will understand why global warming can result in some places being cooler.

12:36 AM

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