|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| Author |
Message |
Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1086
Location: Eugene, Oregon
|
 Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:27 pm Post subject: New York Times: Warnings on Warming... |
    |
|
New York Times, Sept. 29, 2004:
"One wonders what it will take to bestir the Bush administration on the subject of global warming. Everywhere one looks nowadays - London, Moscow, even the odd precinct on Capitol Hill - there is evidence of mounting impatience with Washington's refusal to face up to the threat. While the links between global warming and Florida's serial hurricanes are largely theoretical, even the weather seems to be telling the politicians that it is time to start paying attention.
"Certainly Tony Blair thinks so. In a forceful recent speech before business leaders in London, Mr. Blair, in many other respects a Bush loyalist, called global warming "the world's greatest environmental challenge," implicitly rebuking the administration for its repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Mr. Blair said he would put the issue near the top of the agenda at next year's G-8 meeting of industrialized nations, over which Britain will preside.
...
" Meanwhile, in the Senate, John McCain - last seen rhetorically embracing President Bush at the Republican convention - reminded the White House that he remains, at least on this issue, an implacable critic. In hearings last week, Mr. McCain called the administration's generally passive approach "disgraceful" and warned that future generations would pay a heavy price for continued inaction now.
"Mr. McCain, a co-sponsor with Senator Joseph Lieberman of a bill to impose mandatory caps on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, also ventured where few politicians have dared to go, drawing a link between this calamitous hurricane season and climate change. This is not farfetched: because hurricanes draw their intensity from the heat in ocean waters, and because the oceans (like the rest of the world) are gradually getting warmer, a growing number of reputable scientists say hurricanes are likely to grow in intensity and destructive power, if not frequency."
Continue: (NYTimes.com free registration required...)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/29/opinion/29wed1-final.html |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Architorture
millennium club
Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1376
|
| Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
i've never really grasped this supposed link b/w hurricanes and global warming...
i mean i understand that hurricanes develop due to war ocean currents, but this season, and these hurricanes are hardly the worst ever seen... they just happened to be frequent... but they aren't anything like some of the storms of yesteryear that would go up the entire east coast causing problems... when was the last time NYC got hit really bad...its been a while...
i also thought global warming was contributing to the ice caps melting...you would thinking adding frigid water to the oceans would cool them rather than increase their temperatures....
we have data demonstrating how long it takes to raise the temperature of the earth 1 degree... but how long does it take raise the average temperature of the oceans 1 degree? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kevin
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 1086
Location: Eugene, Oregon
|
| Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Dear Architorture, I know New Yorkers are notoriously metrocentric, but NYC is hardly a very relevant place by which to judge hurricane conditions! (Florida, on the other hand...)
From the NASA website:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/warming3.html
"Right now the IPCC reports that the amount of precipitation, especially in the mid-latitude to high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere, will likely increase. They believe, however, that it will come in the form of bigger, wetter storms, rather than in the form of more rainy days. So it’s more probable that the increase in rain will only serve to tax our drainage systems rather than benefit vegetation or replenish natural, underground aquifers. As to larger more destructive weather patterns, hurricanes will likely increase in intensity due to warmer ocean surface temperatures."
As to the amount of temperature increase, the oceans are big, and a small change is at once hard to measure, and also potentially significant in its impact.
Here's a link to a NOAA graphic with a very carefully produced "sea surface temperature" (SST) time series:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/anomalies/IMAGE6.GIF
With this very technical page explaining the methodology:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html
Based on data collected from various sources, including gnarly data collection buoys like this...
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/wbouey750.jpg |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
blogger
del.icio.us
digg
slashdot
