Experts link forest fire severity to climate change

 @sadatoni  @Crimsonkid  @jenshens I think you misread my post. I said there haven't been any changes in solar variation cycles. I'm aware that incoming solar radiation has a decadal cycle, I was pointing out that the cycle has remained more or less constant (at least, there hasn't been enough change to explain the rise in temp.) while temperatures have risen. 

 @Hountoof  @Crimsonkid  @jenshens 

Apparently you only visit pro-AGW sites:

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/30/global-dimming-and-brightening-in-the-context-of-solar-radiation/

 

"From the abstract of the lead paper by Martin Wild: Recent evidence suggests that solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface has not been constant over time but has undergone substantial variations on decadal timescales. The available observations suggest a widespread decrease in surface solar radiation between the 1950s and 1980s (popularly referred to as “global dimming”), with some more recent evidence for a partial recovery (“brightening”)."

 

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/23/agu-link-found-between-cold-european-winters-and-solar-activity/

 

"WASHINGTON – Scientists have long suspected that the Sun’s 11-year cycle influences climate of certain regions on Earth. Yet records of average, seasonal temperatures do not date back far enough to confirm any patterns. Now, armed with a unique proxy, an international team of researchers show that unusually cold winters in Central Europe are related to low solar activity – when sunspot numbers are minimal. The freezing of Germany’s largest river, the Rhine, is the key."

 

Many, many, many more.  You just have to look.

 @sadatoni  @Sid Vishess The record hight temperatures over the summer were averages over a number of months and were happening in places where models predicted they would happen. Sid's data was recorded over one week. That is far too little time for it to mean anything significant.

 @Hountoof  @Sid Vishess 

Like the isloated record high temperatures this summer?  Cherry picking?

 @Sid Vishess  @Hountoof  Sid, deep down you must realize how desperate that sounds.

 

"All of these isolated events cannot possibly be linked!  Every discrete thing happens in a vacuum!  There are no consequences for any action!"  It reminds me of the end of "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," when Klaus Kinski is attempting to deny the existing of the arrows sticking out of his chest.

 

As far as "unusual wildfire seasons," let's see how "unusual" they are in a couple of years.

 @Hountoof  @Sid Vishess Hountoof, what are you doing, offering up facts, evidence and reasoned debate? The Idiocracy will not tolerate that!

 @Hountoof I said they were isolated events so I wish folks would quit linking things like unusual wildfire seasons to long term climate changes. It's not scientific.

 

 

@Sid Vishess

"Interesting all these record low temperatures, no?

Oh, sorry, these are isolated events and should not be used to convey any weight to Natural Climate Change."

 

Sid there is a significant difference between weather and climate. Weather, being the state of the atmosphere at a given time, varies greatly. Temperature in particular can vary over 100 degrees fahrenheit in continental climates at mid to high latitudes. Climate, on the other hand, is weather, averaged over a certain period of time. It is much more predictable because it is not subject to chaos as weather is. As a result of chaotic variability of weather, it can not be predicted accurately more than 5 days into the future while climate can be predicted hundreds of years into the future.

 

@Sid Vishess

Something I have noticed when talking to people who are skeptical of AGW is that many people feel that it is being treated as if there is no room for debate; that you agree with Al Gore or you are anti-science. I cannot stand it when people use the term "scientific consensus" not because I don't think that scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change is caused by humans but because it is a way of avoiding having to understand the science involved. As an Atmospheric Sciences major, I can assure you that pretty much all of the scientists that I have learned from and whose works I have read are nothing like this. It feels like there are two ongoing debates on climate change. One among politicians and columnists that have turned it into a partisan issue that is separate from the science just like pretty much any other controversy that involves something really intricate that most people don't know very much about, e.g. the economy. The other debate concerns not the existence of AGW but rather, it's future impacts. 

 

"Perhaps the guru of AGW thought, Dr. Mann should follow through on his ill-conceived notion to sue columnist Mark Steyn for slander declaring his "hockey stick" a fraud but he won't, knowing that any defense would expose his scientific fraud committed at Penn State."

 

While it appears that the "hockey stick" graph may have had some inaccurate data, it doesn't seem to have been anything significant. An interesting article by Fred Pearce in the Guardian explains:

 

In 2006, the US National Academy of Sciences published the results of a long inquiry into Mann's findings, triggered by a request from Congress. It upheld most of Mann's findings, albeit with some caveats. "There is sufficient evidence... of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years. Less confidence can be placed in proxy-based reconstructions of surface temperatures for AD 900 to 1600, although the available proxy evidence does indicate that many locations were warmer during the past 25 years than during any other 25-year period since 900."

 

The US National Academy of Sciences' publication can be found in it's entirety at,

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=R1

 

 "And nature has a funny way of ignoring "models." We were told that temperature rise would create a vast hurricane factory starting with Katrina...

Whoops, guess that "model' got b-slapped by Mother Nature."

 

I don't know where you heard that but what I know is that scientists believe that a symptom of climate change will be more severe weather events in the future. I've never heard anything about it all starting with hurricane Katrina. As a side note, anyone who says with certainty that Katrina was caused by global warming doesn't know what they're talking about.

 

 @Hountoof http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=mintemp,lowmax

 

Interesting all these record low temperatures, no?

Oh, sorry, these are isolated events and should not be used to convey any weight to Natural Climate Change.

 @Hountoof And I take offense at you saying I make ridiculous comments specifically about climate change. I make ridiculous statements about lots of topics. I am like... a Renaissance Man of Ridiculosity.

 

edited

 @sadatoni  @Lord Farquad Yes, CFC's were destroying ozone in the stratosphere.

 @Lord Farquad Wasn't it the CFC's that were making the ozone hole?  Or so they said.

@Hountoof @Lord Farquad CFCs were phased out because Dow Chemical's patent was up on it and they paid off the government to outlaw it; guess who owns the patent on the replacement of CFCs, Dow Chemical. If you want to know what is wrong with anything just follow the money.

 @Lord Farquad  CFC's are no longer a problem because they were phased out by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) and Volatile Organic Compound directives in 1994 and 1997 respectively. 

 

This was an example of the international community recognizing a problem and actually doing some about it. I think it was so successful simply because of the fact that eliminating chlorofluorocarbons doesn't affect the oil industry.