"We're Number One" - the fastest warming state in the U.S. Of A.

[progree]

http://news.yahoo.com/video/fastest-warming-state-us-minnesota-003000358.html

Unfortunately the link to the above is to a 1:48 video (no text), and you have to endure a 15 second cat litter commercial first. But it says that (paraphrasing) "the study group Climate Central reports that since 1970 the average winter temperature in Minnesota is up over 5 degrees. " (presumably Farhenheit)

It goes on to interview the Minnesota state climatologist who concurs and also talks about the reduced harshness of recent winters

[truedelphi]

1. Here's a problem I have with this:

Many if not all of the weather stations that were locally relied on for the US weather temperature records have been moved over the last fifty years. The largest number of installations were moved in the Nineteen Eighties. I know personally that the weather station in Chicago was moved from a location close to Lake Michigan to a site near O'Hare airport. Just on that basis, you would see an overnight change in temperatures. The Lake's buffering effect, of keeping temps warmer in the winter to those areas close to its shores, and cooler in the summers, almost immediately would be altered and noted.

So before we can really apprise the accuracy of all this, we need to establish that the locations of the weather stations have not been re-located.

[progree]

2. Sounds like what the climate change denialist websites say. No adjustments are made, no

recalibrations, nada. Its all that silly Al Gore stuff. Don't forget the urban island heat effect -- temperature sensors that decades ago were out in the country are now in the cities (as cities have expanded further and further out). And the satellite, weather balloon and ocean measurements are all screwed up too.

[mwrguy]

3. the science is settled n/t

[truedelphi]

4. Look, I too believe that the weather has changed

Our weather is more extreme. But relying on temperatures without adjusting them for the changing of the actual locales of the weather stations is bad science.

[progree]

5. How do you know they don't adjust the temperatures? That indeed would be bad science if they didn't

And our climate is warmer, not just "more extreme".

[truedelphi]

6. Some places it is warmer, some places it is colder.

No one seems to really know what is going on. We were all told ten years go it would be ice ledges in Antarctica that would be melting, and definitely NOT, we were told, in the Arctic. Then lo and behold, the Arctic seems to be melting away faster than the Antarctic.

And if we have several more super-duper volcanoes go off, we could go back to colder temperatures world wide, as happened in the 1990's, after the eruption of Mt Pinatubo.

[progree]

7. "Some places it is warmer, some places it is colder."

Oh good grief. Where is it getting colder? As for the ice ledges in Antarctica, they are collapsing. The Antarctica Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere in the world.

2012 = 10th warmest year globally since 1880, and the 36th in a row above the 20th century average. The 21st century's 12 years to date all rank among the 14 warmest on record. World temperatures have risen about 0.8 deg C (1.4 deg F) since pre-industrial times.

[font color = blue] "And if we have several more super-duper volcanoes go off, we could go back to colder temperatures world wide, as happened in the 1990's, after the eruption of Mt Pinatubo. "[/font]

And the average temperature in the decade of the 1990s was warmer than any previous decade since records began. Surpassed only by the 2000's.

[font color = blue]"No one seems to really know what is going on."[/font]

You are kind of right there -- temperatures are warming up faster than most of the climate models predicted. But the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists is that temperatures are increasing and that most of that is human-caused. (do you doubt the CO2 measurements too?)

Have you ever read the book "Doubt Is Their Product?"

[truedelphi]

8. I have the feeling you are labelling me as some kind of

"Global Climate Change Denier." But that is far from the truth.

However I think when we needed to do something about all this was some twenty years ago. But back then, it was very rare for the M$ media to even carry a story about the ice collapse in Antarctica,etc.

Now it is a ubiquitous story, and almost every day it is referenced in the news. But I think we are beyond the point where anything can be done. Had we spent the last twenty years doing important things about this, maybe we would have a shot at changing it.

But instead, we had the media ignoring the issue, and now the money that is made in this nation is all going to the top One Percent. Yeah, I am sure some of them have solar panels operating their appliances on their yachts, but what we need to have happen needs to happen to every office and household n the nation. Our money has instead gone to propping up the Big Bankers and spending trillions of dollars on wars looking for WMD, and now for members of Al Queda.

Right now the effects of the Global Climate changes are moving so preposterously beyond anything we can even imagine. With the ice melting along the North Pole, the pressure exerted by the weight of massive tons of glacial ice has been relieved on that sector of the globe. Just what does that absence of pressure mean? What has that done to the overall shape of the globe? Does that affect the planet's orbit, and thus end up affecting ocean currents? Does that mean a change to the jet stream and its relationship to whether or not the jet stream dips down into the normal atmosphere, whereas before the jet stream stayed firmly in the upper reaches of our atmosphere? What is the effect of all the fresh water run off as far as affecting not only sea level, but salinity. With an affect on the salinity of the ocean, we have currents that are going to be very different, and some currents may stagnate.

I don't think that my thoughts on this matter all that much. We are going to see an aggressive Cap And Trade or carbon tax, which of course will be regressive, and will simply penalize the people on the lower end of the economic ladder. But with the Geomagnetic north altering, with the earth's resonance altering, with volcanoes and heavy duty earthquakes on a sharp rise, we may be entering an arena of life that means everyone not able to get in a spaceship and head for the moon (Or Space Station Shangrala) is in big trouble.

[progree]

9. Whew, we generally agree.

Only a couple of things...

[font color = blue]"We are going to see an aggressive Cap And Trade or carbon tax, which of course will be regressive", [/font]

The money collected can be used to reduce other regressive taxes like Social Security taxes, or just a tax credit per household that is equal on average to the amount of the carbon tax or the economic cost of Cap and Trade divided by the number of households.

And I don't agree nothing can be done about it (that's another rightie talking point by the way). It will get warmer, but we can affect somewhat how much warmer. I'm not convinced we are going to make the planet uninhabitable. And I sure as heck won't advocate that we do nothing because it could be regressive or hurt the economy -- I'd rather risk that than fry for sure.

I don't know what media you are talking about that "it is a ubiquitous story". They are covering droughts, wildfires, Sandy etc., but I haven't heard any news outlet (other than fringe progressive websites and progressive magazines) say this is being caused by humans. Only a tiny percent of the American public reads Mother Jones, The Nation, The Progressive Populist, and so on. If the mainstream media does bring up human-induced climate change, it's in the context of a he-said she-said "balanced" news article or debate where both sides are given equal time -- with the righties with their familiar talking points of "we can't really be sure", "temperature sensors in the cities", "some places are getting colder", "Irkutsk is having its coldest winter in 20 years", yada yada.

[truedelphi]

10. If you ever talk to a geo physics expert, you will see what I am

Saying. The fact that the Ice Cap over the Arctic has melted (Mostly) has serious ramifications. This is not merely how the Powers That Be (Like Al Gore) are framing it - as a rise in surface temperature. It is a massive re-distribution of the earth's global energies. And it is a massive re-distribution of every aspect of the global forces. Sure if we all started to cut back on stuff, the climate might not get so warm so fast. But with the types of earth changes I am talking about, we now have an extremely vulnerable planet, and this planet is relieving its re-distribution forces to be released through serious earthquakes and volcanic activity. When a seven or eight earthquake hits Silicon Valley, or a volcanic explosion takes out Yellowstone - that event will dwarf any Katrina, Sandy Hook event.

Also I am critical of Cap and Trade and "Carbon footprint taxation" because it is a nonsensical proposition. It will end up being regressive and it will end up having poor people cut back in ways that totally destroy their households. I know a lot of people who are only eating one or two meals a day simply because they can no longer afford a part time job. (Gas is simply too expensive to use for a job that pays minimum wage and you only get paid for three or four hours of work.) Imagine if we multiply those numbers by further taxing the cars people must use. (And poorer people use the most energy consuming cars, as those cars are all that is available cheaply. Prius purchase takes at least a middle class income!)

An example of national will power: We didn't arrive at a vast interconnecting highway system by taxing people for using the back roads that existed at the time. Instead the government actually put forth the money, under Republican Pres Eisenhower, and then the entire elected government was behind it and the interstate highways system was built.

One thing that we absolutely needed to have started ten years ago was to realize that by placing alt energy devices on the rooftops and back yards of every household and office in the USA to allow for those alt energy devices to take over the water heating (not the overall heating, the water heating) needs of every building in the USA. This would have been something that immediately reduced our carbon footprint by 15%. And it would have provided decent jobs, and it would have been able to have been accomplished, had our nation possessed some national will, as it was not that difficult. After all, such a project is not as big a project as blasting Interstate 80 through the Rocky Mountains! But nah, instead of doing anything really smart about the situation, it was damn more important to go over to Iraq for that phony baloney war, a war that eighty percent of everybody in office signed off on!

"It's too late" might be a RW talking point, but it also is probably correct. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do something. After all, if we do get our nation to see that our resources are used properly, then the air is much more breathable.

[progree]

11. How do you know a national building program won't be paid for by regressive taxes?

[font color = blue]
"Also I am critical of Cap and Trade and "Carbon footprint taxation" because it is a nonsensical proposition. It will end up being regressive and it will end up having poor people cut back in ways that totally destroy their households."

... "An example of national will power: We didn't arrive at a vast interconnecting highway system by taxing people for using the back roads that existed at the time. Instead the government actually put forth the money, under Republican Pres Eisenhower, and then the entire elected government was behind it and the interstate highways system was built. "[/font]

Like I say, Cap and Trade and a carbon tax can be offset by a tax credit, so I don't agree that it has to necessarily be regressive. And how do you know that the money that the "government actually put forth" won't come from regressive taxes? With a Debt-To-GDP ratio over 100% and growing rapidly, we can't expect the Chinese and Japanese to keep debt-financing our government for multi-decades longer, so we're eventually going to have to start paying our bills.

The carbon tax can also help pay for all those solar water heaters and other alternative energy projects, so its not an either/or choice.