Climate Change in PA

[Padraic]

There was a news story on the Public Radio station here in Hbg this morning. Evidently, temperatures are showing a long term increase here in PA.
http://www.witf.org/FM/news.php

(You'll need to listen to the MP3 to get the full story)

 

[SlumpBuster]

Interesting. I know up here in Mansfield though the tmps for this summer have almost always been normal or even below normal this summer. We had only about 5 days of temps in the 90s. Also if Global Warming is being caused by humans there is nothing that PA or even the US can do to prevent it from happening. Our counrty reducing pollution won't help at all as sad as that is.

 

[jayL]

I can't listen at work...

But, out of curiosity, define 'long term'. What's their sample size?

Also, what was the increase in this time?

Thanks

 

[Wulff-Man]

SlumpBuster wrote:
Also if Global Warming is being caused by humans there is nothing that PA or even the US can do to prevent it from happening. Our counrty reducing pollution won't help at all as sad as that is.

Why do you say that, SlumpBuster? I think we in the US produce something like 5x more per capita than the rest of the world. Now, China has just overtaken us in terms of total green house gas emissions, and they are building 2 coal burning power plants per week now, so they are a major concern. But they're saying "Why should we do anything? The US has caused the bulk of the problem, and they aren't doing anything. Why should we slow our economy when the US built theirs all these years while greatly contributing to the problem?" The way I see it, it's important for us to finally get on board with the rest of the industrial world and start to seriously tackle the problem. There won't be much hope of influencing countries like China to do anything if we don't. To think that nothing can be done is really defeatist. Amazing things have been done in cleaning things up since the 70's, due to environmental regulations and public concern.

 

[albatross]

Jay,

Its just a snippet, but they say they are comparing the period 2000 to 2006 (7 years) to the "average" for PA. They don't tell us what "average" is, but presumably its since reliable records were available up to perhaps 1999. I'd like to see the methodology for this. Unfortuantely people are often willing to pervert data to try and promote their own agenda.

 

[albatross]

Here's the Press Release

Normal is temperatures averaged over the 30 years spanning 1971-2000.

This is junk science!

 

[jayL]

One day I went out and caught 2 trout in two casts.

I hereby retire from fly fishing with an estimated 100% success rate.



I'm all for waking people up about global warming, provided it turns out to be an actual issue , but puh-lease do us all a favor and do it in a reasonable and less refutable manner.

Comparing a 7 year sample to a 30 year mean is crap. I'd be willing to bet a beer that they could have easily gone back to a MUCH earlier date, perhaps as early as 1900... too bad that would have shown the sinusoidal nature of weather patterns which they appear to be attemtping to exploit.


EDIT:

Thanks for doing the legwork, Albatross.

 

[tomgamber]

Actually the larger article I saw compare the 30year average from the last 7 years to 1971 to 2000 and to the bigger average from 1870 to 2000. Which is how log their data goes back. It was a one degree average increase, which may not sound like a lot but is a rather large change.

 

[jayL]

That changes things, however comparing a seven year sample is still deceiving. Assuming global warming exists, I'm sure it would be relatively easy to find seven year samples for many areas over the last 15 years or so which would show a rather alarming decrease as well. The 1870-2000 trend would be much more legitimate.

 

[Wulff-Man]

You guys make valid points about the need to look at lonnnng term trends when talking about things like climate change (and I think Tom addressed that in this study), but............ we're not STILL debating whether global warming is real, are we????? :-? :-o

 

[jayL]

I'm not debating. I assume it does. Hence my using it as an assumption for my earlier claims. I won't accept it as fact until it is seen as just that... simply a very strong possibility. For what it's worth, I feel the possibility is strong enough to merit significant action.

Very similar to my views on God, polar bears, China, and many other things that I've not seen with my own eyes.

Ok, some of those were a bit too far.. haha.

With me comes the mind of a very mild skeptic. That's just how I am. It's all part of the Jay package deal.

 

[albatross]

Its a tough issue because climate is not a static thing. Significant changes occur naturally over periods as short as a few decades. Unfortunately, we don't have a "control" earth where man is not emmiting greenhouse gases to compare this one to!

I'm pretty sure we (mankind) are having an impact on climate trajectory. I have little or no confidence that we will be able to cooperate to significantly reduce that impact.

 

[JackM]

I think there are still two arguable points in the Global Warming debate:

1. whether man is causing it or whether it is a natural phenomenon; and

2. whether (if it is natural) it is a cyclical phenomenon, that will reverse or correct itself in time, or is it linear, bound to continue to move in the direction it has been moving in the modern era.

Even if it is occurring naturally, if we can take some action to lessen or slow down its negative impact, we should.

 

[flyfishermanj]

Jack,
You have a good point there. Does Earth's temp change? Well, yes, we know that there were several ice ages. That's a fact. Are we contributing to this latest so called warm-up? Probaly. Should we do something about it? All we got to lose is everything. IMO if we can't keep our backyard clean, then we shouldn't expect our nieghbors too! We're all in this together, if one person sets an example, others will follow, good or bad.
The crazy thing about the greenhouse effect/global warming is, an volcano can blow its top and change everything pretty much overnight.
JH

 

[JackM]

It isn't like the sun has a thermostat to regulate its output either. As an existentialist thinker, I am always relieved to make it through another day with out the dang thing exploding.

 

[flyfishermanj]

Jack,

Sounds like a good toast to start off the evening festivities.
" Here's to trout,mayflies and that damn sun for not burning out today...Cheers!int:

JH

 

[tomgamber]

You can make it as complicated as you want too...for example: global warming actually could contribute to the next ice age happening. As the earths oceans warm, the natural circulation of the oceans such as the Gulf Stream and the one that comes down the west coast (can't remember its name) could change. Melting ice will have a great affect on this circulation by actually lowering the temp of certain bodies of water that are historically warmer. I find it all interesting.

I don't so much believe that global warming is a result of man by itself as much as I have trouble believing that over the number of years that we have existed on this planet, that we didn't manage to have very serious negative impacts...

 

[Chaz]

There are climate records for Philly going as far back as the days of Ben Franklin, the nationas first weather man. I know 2 things the earth is getting warmer and man is contributing to it. As far as how much I'm not sure anyone knows, especially when you take into account the little ice age ended in roughly 1850 and lasted for approximately 500 years. The question is what kind of earth do we want to leave our kids? A cinder? A place where Pennsylvania has no trout streams? If we just slow down while we're driving and car pool we'll save ton of greenhouse gases. As populations expand it is much more important to have a clean planet, then when the earth only had 1 million humans.

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

" Here's to trout,mayflies and that damn sun for not burning out today...Cheers!

ill drink 2 that! int: heck ill have 2 int:

 

[shultzy501]

I saw an interesting debate on climate change yesterday on TV. The two men debated both sides of the issue, but the most valuable point I heard was from the man who was arguing that climate change is real. His closing point was that no matter where you stand on the issue, we need to do a better job of conserving energy, reducing our CO2 output, and, especially, reduce our dependence on foreign oil.