MGC wrote:Well, according to Al Gore, global warming did in fact attack my home. The attack came in the form of Hurricane Katrina.
2005 was above 1933. There's no way to tell if the extra was from global warming. The people of an Alaskan town having to be moved inland because of ocean erosion caused by less sea ice might have a different opinion. As would a town dependent on drying glacial run-off.
MCG wrote: The fact that one area of the world has a record head wave don't prove that the Earth is warming. There have been many heat waves over the years.
I think that is oversimplified. The context was prolonged record heat near 47c during a time when people are saying a cold winter is disproving global warming.
MGC wrote:Sanibel, I'm sure you recall Hurricane Charley. The front that pushed Charley east was responsible for setting record low temperatures here on the Mississippi Coast for 5 consecutive morning. The string of 5 consecutive were also a record for most consecutive record lows in a row, all in August.
Bingo. I've been explaining amplitude here repeatedly but people don't seem to understand it. Global warming might not come in the expected form. Amplitude is increased strength in weather and weather systems due to global warming adding more heat to the atmosphere and causing more energy within the atmosphere. This means weather systems are able to pull cool weather from further north during summer. That cold front was unusual for August. Unusual weather is a sign of global warming. Which is exactly why the 69*f temperature the day after the 118*f temperature in Melbourne was showing us an energized atmosphere capable of sharp swings.
MCG wrote:I recall sitting though a very memorable heat wave in 1980, just about when all this GW malarkey started. I am of the opinion that the recent warming is cyclical in nature, just as the Medieval warm period gave way to the Little Ice Age. The Earth warms up, then cools off due to changes in the Earth's orbital dynamics and solar output...MGC
I don't think it is scientific to ignore the billions of tons of man-made CO2 and its scientific consequences. Those other cycles happened without the current human input at a time with a completely different human footprint. They're not comparable.