13 degrees tonite, 9 tomorrow night

[Bulldog1]

So much for living in the Deep South. And in less than 2 months martins will be showing up here. The second week in March for all three years I have been doing this. Hard to believe.

[Dave Reynolds]

So much for global warming..

[Chuck4]

Regardless of these current temps, the birds are folowing their proper survival path. They seem to appear at realtively safe intervals amidst all of the coldness. They have not ventured too far north as of yet. When the warm southerlies return they will flock back in.

[4th Gen Martin Fan]

I definitely do not want the purple martins too early.
Last night's low here was 15 degrees F.
As you mentioned, the low temperature is supposed to be worse tonight.
I am anxious to have them back but not that anxious.

[James Rieman]

So much for global warming..

Nobody ever said it wasn't going to get cold in the winter. It's about average global temperature, not local weather. No climate scientists are suggesting that there won't be cold weather in the winter.

[Robert Richerson]

I never bought into global warming. Of course us that don't believe in it aren't as smart as the others that do. Don't take my word for it, just ask them. You can find them trolling at Huff Post.

Global warming? Satellite data shows Arctic sea ice coverage up 50 percent!

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/16/globa ... z2rCvLwqSx

[James Rieman]

I never bought into global warming. Of course us that don't believe in it aren't as smart as the others that do. Don't take my word for it, just ask them. You can find them trolling at Huff Post.

Global warming? Satellite data shows Arctic sea ice coverage up 50 percent!

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/16/globa ... z2rCvLwqSx

Robert, nobody said anything about insulting anybody's intelligence here. That article is misleading. Sea ice coverage has nothing to do with volume of sea ice. The increased coverage seen that year was from THIN sea ice. The total volume of arctic sea ice, especially thick sea ice, is on an alarming downward trend. The VOLUME of sea ice is decreasing more and more EVERY year. At current trends we may be seeing an iceless arctic by 2013!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... _year.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgiMBxaL19M#t=13
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Has-Arc ... overed.htm

[RedSanders]

Whooo hooo....looking forward to having beach front property in Lake Charles in the next couple of years. PMs will have lots of water to skim over, cause it'll all be fresh water by then. Exciting!

[John Miller]

Thought it interesting that according to some weather news the jet stream dip responsible for this cold -- it's zero degrees here now and I'm procrastinating going outside to fill bird feeders -- is also causing the drought and warm temps in southern California. John

[JL Murray]

I saw yesterday on the Weather Channel that Juno Alaska was forcast to be in the fourties when at the same time Atlanta would be in the thirties.

[tlragsdale]

We are located in far western WI…after a low last night of 19 below zero, our "high" today is forecast to be a whopping -2. Some Anchorage residents will likely run around in shorts today (their forecast high is 44), and their neighbors to the north, Fairbanks, will top-out at 29 degrees.

What the heck??

[4th Gen Martin Fan]

My outside thermometer registered a low of 8 degrees F last night.
My advise to the martins, Stay South, Slow Down the Migration North!

Mark.

[Robert Richerson]

Although I have never bought into the man-made global warming phenomenon, I have found that Bjørn Lomborg's take on it and his solutions do make sense.

His video lecture called "Cool It" is available on Netflix. It's well worth watching no matter which side you presently believe on the topic. The video is a few years old and has already proved Al Gore's short term predictions wrong.


'Cool It '

A provocative voice vilified by pundits on both ends of the political spectrum, Bjørn Lomborg challenges prevailing ideas on climate change and explores scientific and technological advances that may help avert a global warming crisis.

[RedSanders]

Ok, my last comment on this somewhat non-topic. To quote one source "Earth's climate has varied widely over its history, from ice ages characterized by large ice sheets covering many land areas, to warm periods with no ice at the poles." The last advance of polar ice ended about 10,000 to 12,000 BC. Since then, there is has been a slow warming trend. From historical records, we know of some cooling periods, but nevertheless the overall trend has been warming. In summary, earth's temperature has been warmer, and it has been colder. Common sense tells us that man did not start this recent warming trend. One side of the current debate says that we are adding to the warming by dumping "unnatural" amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. However, there are data that show CO2 levels LAG temperature changes. The real complicating factor in this argument is the intrusion of political goals and philosophies (and accompanying monies), which has already been shown to result in biased, and sometime forged research results.

Bottom line - are you ready to turn off your heater, air conditioner and car and start walking to "save the planet"? If so, that's your choice. Otherwise, this is a nice little fireside (read CO2 emissions) debate.

[James Rieman]

Raymond, this debate is not about common sense, it is about science. Common sense told us the the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth, science has informed us otherwise.

The data you site which indicated previous CO2 increases lag the temperature increase proves how well climate scientists understand and have predicted greenhouse effects on the atmosphere. The authors of that paper use the data to confirm that the current warming is anthropogenic. With regard to the Earth's previous cooling and warming cycles, CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages, but it did AMPLIFY the warming. 90% of the subsequent warming during these periods followed the CO2 increase. What initiated the warming then was related to the Milankovitch cycles, which has to do with changes in the three main orbital variations of the earth - 1)Eccentricity: changes in the shape of the earth's orbit, 2) Obliquity: changes in the tilt of the earth's rotational axis, 3)Precession: wobbles in the earth's rotational axis. The combined effect of these orbital cycles affects the amount of seasonal sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. In the case of warming, the lag between temperature and CO2 is explained as follows: as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming. This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation. Additional positive feedbacks which play an important role in this process include other greenhouse gases, and changes in ice sheet cover and vegetation patterns.

A 2012 study by Shakun et al. looked at temperature changes 20,000 years ago (the last glacial-interglacial transition) from around the world and added more detail to our understanding of the CO2-temperature change relationship. They found that:

The Earth's orbital cycles trigger the initial warming (starting approximately 19,000 years ago), which is first reflected in the the Arctic.
-This Arctic warming caused large amounts of ice to melt, causing large amounts of fresh water to flood into the oceans.
-This influx of fresh water then disrupted the Atlantic Ocean circulation, in turn causing a seesawing of heat between the hemispheres. The Southern Hemisphere and its oceans warmed first, starting about 18,000 years ago.
-The warming Southern Ocean then released CO2 into the atmosphere starting around 17,500 years ago, which in turn caused the entire planet to warm via the increased greenhouse effect.
-Overall, about 90% of the global warming occurred after the CO2 increase.

Before you blame the Milankovitch Cycles for the current warming, you should know that we are in a cooling phase of the Milankovitch Cycle, but that cooling trend was reversed in the 20th and 21st centuries due to warming caused by increased anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas emissions. The anthropogenic effect of greenhouse gases are overwhelming the weaker orbital effect of the Milankovitch cycles.

In summary, previously, while the Milankovitch cycle initiated a low level of warming of the atmosphere, the subsequent release of carbon into the atmosphere amplified the warming and resulted in 90% of the warming. But we are now in a cooling phase of the Milankovitch cycle and it is the man made release of carbon into the atmosphere that is the cause of the current warming.

Here is a good UTube video. It talks about how the authors of the very paper you sited use the data to confirm that the current global warming is due to anthropogenic CO2 release into nthe atmosphere!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nrvrkVBt24

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lag ... rature.htm

I agree with you that the intrusion of political goals and philosophies and especially MONEY has complicated the understanding of many people of this complex problem. The petrochemical industry is very politically powerful and has a lot of money and it has used this money and influence to obscure the facts.

[Siberman]

I have a fireplace so I can do without the heater .

I live within 7 miles of work / shopping and the walk would be good for me .

But they'll get my AC when they pry the thermostat from my cold dead hands .

[Ron Shaffer]

...calling for 11 below here Tuesday morning....that may be the worst I've seen in my 44 yrs...
.Now...y'all down there take care of my birds till they can work their way up to me.

[4th Gen Martin Fan]

But you guys get all the martins.
Seriously though. Ron, that is an impressive colony that you are nurturing! Steady growth. You must be doing everything correctly.
Mark.

[Chuck4]

Still cold here in north MS, but I know spring is coming!

[Harold Green]

Raymond, this debate is not about common sense, it is about science. Common sense told us the the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth, science has informed us otherwise.

The data you site which indicated previous CO2 increases lag the temperature increase proves how well climate scientists understand and have predicted greenhouse effects on the atmosphere. The authors of that paper use the data to confirm that the current warming is anthropogenic. With regard to the Earth's previous cooling and warming cycles, CO2 didn't initiate warming from past ice ages, but it did AMPLIFY the warming. 90% of the subsequent warming during these periods followed the CO2 increase. What initiated the warming then was related to the Milankovitch cycles, which has to do with changes in the three main orbital variations of the earth - 1)Eccentricity: changes in the shape of the earth's orbit, 2) Obliquity: changes in the tilt of the earth's rotational axis, 3)Precession: wobbles in the earth's rotational axis. The combined effect of these orbital cycles affects the amount of seasonal sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. In the case of warming, the lag between temperature and CO2 is explained as follows: as ocean temperatures rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend, leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become both the cause and effect of further warming. This positive feedback is necessary to trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to cause such variation. Additional positive feedbacks which play an important role in this process include other greenhouse gases, and changes in ice sheet cover and vegetation patterns.

A 2012 study by Shakun et al. looked at temperature changes 20,000 years ago (the last glacial-interglacial transition) from around the world and added more detail to our understanding of the CO2-temperature change relationship. They found that:

The Earth's orbital cycles trigger the initial warming (starting approximately 19,000 years ago), which is first reflected in the the Arctic.
-This Arctic warming caused large amounts of ice to melt, causing large amounts of fresh water to flood into the oceans.
-This influx of fresh water then disrupted the Atlantic Ocean circulation, in turn causing a seesawing of heat between the hemispheres. The Southern Hemisphere and its oceans warmed first, starting about 18,000 years ago.
-The warming Southern Ocean then released CO2 into the atmosphere starting around 17,500 years ago, which in turn caused the entire planet to warm via the increased greenhouse effect.
-Overall, about 90% of the global warming occurred after the CO2 increase.

Before you blame the Milankovitch Cycles for the current warming, you should know that we are in a cooling phase of the Milankovitch Cycle, but that cooling trend was reversed in the 20th and 21st centuries due to warming caused by increased anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas emissions. The anthropogenic effect of greenhouse gases are overwhelming the weaker orbital effect of the Milankovitch cycles.

In summary, previously, while the Milankovitch cycle initiated a low level of warming of the atmosphere, the subsequent release of carbon into the atmosphere amplified the warming and resulted in 90% of the warming. But we are now in a cooling phase of the Milankovitch cycle and it is the man made release of carbon into the atmosphere that is the cause of the current warming.

Here is a good UTube video. It talks about how the authors of the very paper you sited use the data to confirm that the current global warming is due to anthropogenic CO2 release into nthe atmosphere!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nrvrkVBt24

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lag ... rature.htm

I agree with you that the intrusion of political goals and philosophies and especially MONEY has complicated the understanding of many people of this complex problem. The petrochemical industry is very politically powerful and has a lot of money and it has used this money and influence to obscure the facts.

You say the non global warming information is wrong because a group of people don't know what they are talking about. How do you know the information you keep quoting is correct. Just like politics, you can believe what you want and it doesn't make you more correct than someone else. I can tell you Jesus walked this earth and died for our sins. Can you prove to me that he didn't?