The Climate Change Debate Rages On

Hello again, fellow weather and climate enthusiasts. It has been awhile since you all have heard from me. I took a break from writing this summer, but as classes have started back up, so has my desire to continue this blog.

I may have taken a break but climate change sure hasn't!

There have been many terrifying, and awe-inspiring, weather events that occurred over the summer and are still raging on.

There was the EF5 tornado that killed 7 school children in the town of Moore, OK on May 20th.

"Homes damaged by Monday's tornado are shown Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Moore, Okla. A huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)"

Flooding was an ongoing issue this summer. The death toll from flash-flooding in Colorado is still rising. CNN reports that there are 6 people presumed dead and another 482 people still unaccounted for!!

A year's worth of rain totals in just one day!! Yikes!

There were horrific wildfires this summer as well. You might argue that fire is not a weather event.

However, sometimes weather is the start of these fires. A lightning strike can set dry brush or a tree on fire, thus sparking a spreading wildfire. Also, the weather plays a large role in how the fire spreads. The rainfall, or lack thereof, determines what kind of fuel the fire has and the winds can help drive the flames and make a bad situation worse.

I plan to cover the topic of how wildfires are a weather event in a future post.

As you can see, here in the States it has not been a quiet summer...

Now, on the heels of these events and with talks of what the winter will bring, the United Nations is about to release a report on climate change.

The New York Times had some interesting things to say about the report. The article,
A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some states that there are two fights brewing. 

1. "Mainstream science" believes that if we keep burning fossil fuels at this rate then the polar ice will keep melting. This means "the ocean could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100". There is some "outlier science" that believes the problem to be worse, with the rising waters possibly reaching five feet.

The argument: the report will use the lower number, as the "outlier science" was deemed not credible.

2. "Mainstream science" believes that when the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, which is very possible, the Earth's temperature will eventually rise at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but more likely by 5 degrees. Now, the "outlier science" in this case believes that the temperature may rise to a number well below 3 degrees.

The argument: The report will use the lower number, as the "outlier science" was deemed credible.

Um? Wait... how is the extreme not credible in one case but credible in the other? Awfully convenient that the "credible" numbers are the conservative estimate in both scenarios.

The New York Times goes on to say that climate change skeptics usually accuse these periodic U.N. reports as using the skewed data to make the issue seem worse than it is. It seems this time the report is going to go the other way. Is it now too conservative?

The article does point out that we are not climatologists and that these two issues are vastly different. We need to rely on the scientists to interpret the data for us, even when the results don't make sense.

The group of scientists writing this report is one that I trust: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They are Nobel Prize winners after all.

The Times also points out that the report isn't finished. The information about these two arguments came from a leaked draft of the report. The published report could read very differently.

I agree with journalist Justin Gillis when he writes, "Assuming these decisions withstand final review, it will be fascinating to hear the detailed explanations in Stockholm."

This issue is so complex and there are scientists on both extremes of the issue, and some in the middle. It is very hard to decide just where the truth lies.

At least it seems that we are all finally in agreement on one thing though: climate change is real and it is happening now.

Now if only we could firmly agree on why...

I'm not sure I even care about the predictions on how serious the effects will be. 

How about, instead of arguing over a few feet or degrees, we start focusing on how to STOP the oceans and the temperatures from rising?

I'm no scientist, but that sounds pretty important to me...

The Story of the Carbon Cycle

In honor of Earth Day I thought today I would tell you the story of the carbon cycle.

Many many many years ago, back to the time of the dinosaurs. Wait, go even farther back than that! Volcanoes were erupting and sending carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the air. It was launched way up into the atmosphere, and there it stayed.




It was just floating along when all of a sudden it started to rain! All these drops of water started to fall from the sky and the CO₂ thought that looked like great fun!

So, CO₂ decided to hitch a ride with one of the raindrops. As they plummeted together toward the ground, the water and the CO₂ decided to become best friends forever. They called themselves carbonic acid.




They weren't a very strong acid, but they sure did know how to party with the rocks! The stones that the carbonic acid landed on were glad for the new company and reacted by releasing carbon. The carbon from the carbonic acid rock party washed gently into the ocean. There it meet other carbon that had eventually found its way to the ocean too. Some carbon took a longer route to get there, but all carbon ends up in the sea!

Our carbon had seen how much fun the water, CO₂, and rocks had together and wanted a friend of its own!

Unfortunately, the carbon started acting out and upset some nearby plankton. The plankton decided it was best to lock the carbon up in it's shell so it wouldn't cause anymore trouble.

The carbon and the plankton lived together until the end of the plankton's life. When the plankton died it drifted to the bottom of the ocean and eventually became a rock. The carbon now found itself back inside the Earth.




Another CO₂, cousin to our first friend, found the temperature becoming warmer and warmer and all her friends were joining up with rain droplets. She watched as more and more carbonic acid dropped down and made the rocks release more carbon. As it grew hotter she started to get worried.

But then the plants started to grow and grow. They liked the rain, the warm temperatures, and our friend CO₂. This little CO₂ decided that the party life wasn't for her and joined up with a plant instead. The plant pulled her in and placed the carbon into the soil, back to the ground where she started.








The temperature started to even back out again as the amount of carbon in the air was brought back into balance.

Every now and then something would happen that would make the Earth cooler or warmer, but eventually the carbons working with the rocks and the plants would balance out the climate.

Well, until man arrived and started to invent new and amazing things.

Most of the carbon ended up in the ground in forms that man learned to use, like oil, coal, and natural gas.

All of a sudden, carbon that had slept for thousands of years was waking up!

Carbon had slept for so long in a rock at the bottom of the ocean, but what was that noise?! The carbon that had gone into the ocean floor because of plankton was now being drilled back up!

His cousin had ended up as coal deep in the ground and had slept soundly too, but now she was being dug up as well!

As the coal was burned and the oil was burned, our cousin carbons were released back up into the air! Along with their other cousin carbons that hadn't been up there for centuries!

As they gathered together they remembered the fun they had all those years ago, and again joined up with water. It came raining back down as carbonic acid and the cycled continued as it had all these years. Except now there was more carbon being released by man and less trees and vegetation to pull the carbon back into the ground. Man threw more and more carbon up into the sky, not considering what it might do to the delicate balancing act billions of years in the making.

It's getting warmer. 

Earth will be alright, she will make it through this carbon party and eventually balance herself back out.

The question is, can we adapt to the changes we are causing? Can we survive long enough to see the climate come back to its balanced state?

I hope so.



(This story was written using information gathered from The Weather of the Future by Dr. Heidi Cullen. This information can be found in Chapter 2: Seeing Climate Change in Our Past on pages 23-25.)

Making Some Sense of the Melting Arctic

When deciding what I want to blog about, gathering research, or when just in the mood to read about weather and climate, I often find myself gravitating toward other weather blogs. I tend to read blogs posted on weather sites such as Accuweather, Wunderground, and ClimateCentral. These sites have blogs and posts written by multiple weather and climate experts.

I was exploring various blogs when I found this post by Angela Fritz, New Images of the 2013 Arctic Sea Ice Mega-Fracture. Fritz is an atmospheric scientist for Wunderground, and has a blog on the Wunderground site.

Her post on March, 29th 2013 contains some great pictures and video of a large fracture in the Arctic ice. According to Fritz this large fracture occurred because the Arctic ice is thinning and becoming a lot more fragile. Then the weather in the last two months was putting pressure on the ice from the land, pushing it into the ocean. Thicker, more stable ice wouldn't have been affected, but today's ice couldn't withstand the pressure and broke.

Andrew Freedman and Michael D. Lemonick also discuss this fracture and Arctic ice in their post Arctic Ice Hits Annual Max and it’s 6th Lowest on Record. They have one of the same animations that Fritz has in her post, and discuss the topic at length.

This article is great because it goes on to explain why the arctic is warming faster than other areas of the world. It's a feedback cycle called Arctic Amplification. The white snow and ice reflects the sun's rays back up into the air. But now, with the ice melting, the darker colored water appears and instead of reflecting the rays it absorbs them. This heats the water, which in turn melts more ice! The cycle then continues with more and more ice melting, and the warmer waters starting to affect weather all over the world.

NBC News' John Roach published a great article titled Arctic change reverberates around globe, experts say. In the article he explains how the warming air can create such cold temperatures in some areas of the world. For awhile now, I didn't really understand how we could still have such cold temperatures when the climate was warming. Last year seemed to fit with my expectations, but this past winter was pretty cold!

Roach explains that when the ocean releases this warmth into the air, it affects the jetstream.

In particular, he and colleagues hypothesize that the warming Arctic causes the jetsteam to slow down and meander like a river flowing through the plains. This, in turn, transports less warm air over the lands from the oceans.

We saw this occur this past winter, when the wind from the west slowed down and we had a very cold, very wet, winter. He also goes on to explain that the slow jetstream can cause periods of high temperatures as well. It all depends on how the jetstream dips and rises.

Well that makes a little more sense!

Angela Fritz's blog post shows us a serious fracture in the Arctic ice that recently occurred, and why it happened. Freedman and Lemonick then explain to us the vicious cycle that is causing the Arctic ice to melt. Finally, the recent article by Roach presents a theory using the jetstream to explain why we may still have some very cold trends.

I love it when blog posts and articles come together and really shine some light on what is happening with our climate and our world.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

I've posted about the different opinions on climate change, but you may be sitting there wondering, what exactly is climate change?  Good question!

First lets define climate.  Dictionary.com tells us,

1. the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure,humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.
2. a region or area characterized by a given climate: to move to a warm climate.
3. the prevailing attitudes, standards, or environmental conditions of a group, period, or place: a climate of political unrest.

The first definition is the one that applies to the topic of climate change. Here is how Dr. Heidi Cullen explains climate in her book The Weather of the Future, "weather is concerned with the immediate whereas climate is more focused on the long term."

Basically, weather is the day to day conditions we experience outside, like the things listed above in the definition.  Then climate is those conditions in a larger area averaged out over time.  The short video below from Climate Central, explains more.

NOAA The National Weather Service has a great brochure about climate change that I thought I would summarize for you.

• The climate is changing.  This decade and the last have been the warmest since the start of recording in the mid 1800's.
• Some of the change is natural.  This is because of how the different parts of the Earth interact, the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere. The sun and solar radiation also play a part in the changes. 
• Some of the change is caused by people.  This is where greenhouse gases come into play.
  "Carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O), trap heat in the atmosphere causing a greenhouse effect."
• These gases are released by burning coal, oil, and natural gas.
• 
  

Here are some other interesting facts and tidbits I gathered from the US EPA website:

• NASA and NOAA both agree that climate change is occurring and that humans are playing a role in the change.
• The average temperature has risen 1.4F degrees, which has led to increased rainfall, heat waves becoming more frequent and more intense, warmer and more acidic oceans, and an increase in sea level due to arctic ice melting.
• While the sun does have periods of warming and cooling, it does not appear to have as much of an impact on Earth as human activity.
• A warmer climate does not mean no more cold winters. Actually, the slightly warmer climate means that there is more water up in the atmosphere, which can mean more snow when the temperature does drop low enough.  But, as the climate grows warmer and warmer the length of our winters will grow shorter and shorter, but be snowier and snowier!
• There is a natural carbon cycle, where carbon dioxide is naturally emitted but then also taken back up by plants and put into the ground. Humans burning fossil fuels is not part of this cycle and has thrown it out of whack!
• Yes, the Earth was once warmer than it is today.  But it was still stable back then, and it isn't stable now. It is projected to warm up faster than has ever been recorded. 
• The hole in the ozone, and thinning ozone layer is a negative consequence of human actions.  While it is dangerous, and poses risks to our health, it is not significant to climate change.
• IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE.

In my next post I plan to address different steps that are being taken to stop climate change.  We will look at different government programs, and what you can do to make a difference.

8 Arguments Against Global Warming

In this post I wanted to take a look at some of the arguments against climate change, or against our role in it as a species.  Some scientists agree that our world is getting warmer, but not everyone agrees on why.  Then there are some that believe the climate is actually growing colder!

Peter Ferrara wrote an article for Forbes.com titled, Sorry Global Warming Alarmists, The Earth Is Cooling, in May of 2012.  His article is about how the Earth is actually starting to cool down, due to naturally occurring temperature cycles. He attended the International Climate Change Conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute, that month, and came to his conclusions after hearing the speakers.  It appears that, not only did he attend, he spoke as well.  Mr. Ferrara is also a director for the Heartland Institute.  This institute considers itself the "international headquarters of the climate realists".

The article states at one point that the oceans undergo a natural process where the colder water deeper in the oceans cycle up to switch with the warmer water.  That then affects the air temperature and can cause it to change by the degrees currently seen.

The article goes on to discuss more but I had to stop reading.  He keeps calling the other scientists alarmists, and accusing them of things like, "personal attacks, ad hominem arguments, and name calling, combined with admissions that they can’t defend their views in public debate".  He doesn't seem to be behaving much better in his article.

So moving on...

One point that keeps coming up in my research is that climate is a confusing issue that we really do not know enough about.  Also, there are other factors involved such as politics and economy.  The video below was posted on Youtube in 2011 and is a news report from Fox Business.  The video presents the idea of global cooling but then adds in economic issues, even mentions "the mob"! Apparently, global warming is better for the economy than global cooling...

Oh boy... I really did want to try to remain impartial and research and write this post with an open mind, but it is getting really difficult.  Kill all the cows because of methane? Really?? I think Vermont (Cow Power!) would have something to say about that!

I think this gives you a pretty good idea of the war that is raging between the two sides. Both sides claim to have science on their side. There are economic issues, political issues, social issues and so much more involved in this topic of global warming/cooling.  Lets break down this "realist" side of the argument with a good ol' fashioned list.

American Policy Roundtable summed up 8 Arguments Against Global Warming from Heartland Institute (and then I summed it up some more):

1. We, the people, are not the cause.  There are scientists that just don't believe there is enough evidence to support the theory that gases released by people are causing climate change.
2. Pffft, you can't prove that it's getting warmer!  There is no temperature data that proves the climate is getting warmer.
3. Computers are puppets.  Predictions based on computer models are not accurate.  People can manipulate the data to make the results say whatever they want.
4. The opposition is reading it wrong.  A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is often quoted incorrectly by "alarmists". In fact, it should be interpreted to support the "realists".
5. A little warmth might not be bad...   Warmer temperatures + Vikings = Settling of Greenland
   Even warmer temperatures were experienced during the development of the first civilizations. Obviously, warmer temperatures make people want to settle down and work harder. So forget Obama, all we need is a little warming of the climate to boost the economy!
6. It costs too much to fold, so let it ride!  Let us say, for the sake of this list, that gas emissions are causing climate change.  It would cost way too much to try to stop emissions now, and it wouldn't lead to much of a change; just a lowly reduction of .14 degrees Celsius.
7. States will suffer and budgets will burst! States went on shopping sprees in the 1990's and now can't pay their credit card bills. Still, they continue to spend money on frivolous things like, "greenhouse gas reduction programs".  These programs do nothing except waste hard-earned money and take away jobs.
8. Don't live your life with regret!  Why try to stop climate change now? Let's do some research, and then, once the ice-caps have melted, the coral reefs are all bleached, and NYC is under water, THEN let's do something about it! 

Screenshot from The Day After Tomorrow 

Alright, I may have come off as sounding a little biased, but I did try!! If I squint reaaallly hard, some of those points may make some sense.  I know where I stand on the issue of climate change, and am comfortable in my beliefs.  I encourage you to do some of your own research and take a stand.  Even if that stand is on the other side. 

**Update 5/7/13 - I just wanted to make sure that I was clear about my beliefs on the topic of climate change. I believe that climate change is happening. I believe that it is a naturally occurring phenomenon that we have accelerated. I believe that we can still do something about it, but we also need to start adapting to the changes in our climate and weather.