[Vision2020] Snow storms and global warming

[Art Deco]

If over a period of years the change in glacial ice mass would be markedly positive, then the probability of long term global warming would need to be re-evaluated.

I'm am not nearly as up on this as Ted, but what I read weekly in New Scientist is there are not many scientists publishing in refereed journals that believe that human activity is the sole cause of global warming.  What is contested is how much human activity contributes, and what might be done to reduce this component.  There is evidence of past volcanic eruptions such as Krakatoa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa and other natural activities having a very short term effect on world climates because of the amount of ash, etc released into the atmosphere.

The old theory when I took physical geography and geology (which really dates me) was that increased moisture would lead to lower temperatures, snow, and snow accumulation (bigger, better glaciers).  That was part of the explanation given for the four most recent ice ages.  The state of the ozone layer is currently used by some to explain that while there appears to be more moisture in the atmosphere, more solar radiation is reaching the earth's surface.

I do not have global experience of the reported great loss of glacial ice mass, but I have witnessed over the last 50 years, and especially over the last 30 years the huge loss of glacial ice in the Canadian Rockies.  Alaskans tell me the same story about many Alaskan locales.

As far as I'm concerned, the earth has plenty of resources but there are just too many people using them and using them unwisely which contributes in part to global warming.  I see no solution to this whole over-population, over-consumption problem in the near future, but only that it will get worse and with it, barring some unforeseen natural events, some very life changing changes.

But all this is speculation based on currently asserted probabilities by a very large portion of the relevant scientific community.  Our knowledge and understanding in this area is far from comprehensive at this point, and as with any knowledge claims, subject to correction based on further observations.

W.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul Rumelhart 
  To: vision 2020 
  Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 12:33 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Snow storms and global warming


  I've seen lots of articles on the web that describe how the current record-breaking weather on the East Coast does not disprove global warming.  Here is a sampling:

  http://mediamatters.org/research/201002090032
  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/no_the_snow_does_not_disprove.html
  http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/12/cold-snap-global-warming/

  I don't dispute this. I'm pretty sure that global warming is happening on larger timescales; I am just skeptical of the anthropogenic component being as powerful a forcing as climate scientists and political leaders would like us to believe.  

  It does lead me to wonder about one thing, though.  What kind of a winter would it take to disprove global warming?

  A mild winter would likely be blamed on the overall temperature increase, where a stormy winter would likely be blamed on there being more moisture in the air and more energy in the system.  Would a winter that was average in all ways be enough?  Since winters vary so much over the years, what would a completely average winter look like?  Would it take a winter that lasted all year?  If it's likely that no winter that could reasonably be expected to occur would disprove it, then is it meaningful to say that the current weather was predicted by the AGW hypothesis?

  I've also been pondering the role of moisture in global temperature.  If the moisture content of the air is indeed increasing, wouldn't that mean more snowfall and more clouds?  Both of which change the albedo of the Earth a significant amount which would cause more sunlight to be reflected back into space.  Would this serve as a negative feedback process?  From what I've read, the affect on clouds on global warming is one of the biggest open-ended questions out there right now.

  Just curious what other people thought.

  Paul

  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20100211/a926f6c8/attachment.html