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The West is on fire [W:86]

If some people’s houses were on fire or in danger of flooding, there would be no rational argument to get them to save themselves.
Reminds me of an old joke: the neigborhood was slowly flooding during a terrible storm, the occupant of the House was on the first floor and the rescue boat came to the window. They called out to the homeowner, ‘ we are here to rescue you, get in the boat!” The homeowner replied, “ God will look out for me.” After another few hours of torrential rain, the homeowner was forced to get to the second floor of his house. The boat made another attempt at rescue with the same answer. The next day the storm had forced the homeowner to the roof of his house. The rescue boat once again implored the homeowner to save himself, “ God will save me,” was the reply. Later that day the water completely immersed the house and the homeowner drowned. When the homeowner was at the pearly gates, he asked St. Peter what had happened, as he had been a God-fearing, religious man his whole life. St. Peter replied, “ we sent the boat for you three times!”
 
Interesting point of view.

If natural global warming is real, what are the results of it? How do you know it's even happening?

It is simply natural cyclical climate evolution. An example:

[h=2]Nature Unbound IV – The 2400-year Bray cycle. Part A[/h][FONT=&quot]Posted on July 11, 2017 | 136 comments[/FONT]
By Javier The existence of a ~ 2400-year climate cycle, discovered in 1968 by Roger Bray, is supported by abundant evidence from vegetation changes, glacier re-advances, atmospheric changes reflected in alterations in wind patterns, oceanic temperature and salinity changes, drift … Continue reading
 
It is simply natural cyclical climate evolution. An example:

[h=2]Nature Unbound IV – The 2400-year Bray cycle. Part A[/h][FONT="][FONT=inherit]Posted on[/FONT] [URL="https://judithcurry.com/2017/07/11/nature-unbound-iv-the-2400-year-bray-cycle-part-a/"]July 11, 2017[/URL] | 136 comments[/FONT]
By Javier The existence of a ~ 2400-year climate cycle, discovered in 1968 by Roger Bray, is supported by abundant evidence from vegetation changes, glacier re-advances, atmospheric changes reflected in alterations in wind patterns, oceanic temperature and salinity changes, drift … Continue reading

OK, and why doesn't this natural cyclical climate evolution have an effect on weather patterns?
 
Our discussion has been about extreme weather. There is no evidence link any climate cycle to an increase or decrease in extreme weather. That is why I said it "may."

Earlier, you said:

We have not been seeing unusual extremes of weather.

which is demonstrably not true. We see examples all over the world.

So, since global warming is real, and since one of the predicted results of global warming is an increase in the extremes of weather, how can you be so sure than there is no connection between natural global warming and the drought in California or the extreme heat wave in Australia, or any other demonstrably extreme weather event all over the world?
 
Earlier, you said:



which is demonstrably not true. We see examples all over the world.

So, since global warming is real, and since one of the predicted results of global warming is an increase in the extremes of weather, how can you be so sure than there is no connection between natural global warming and the drought in California or the extreme heat wave in Australia, or any other demonstrably extreme weather event all over the world?

Your premise is false. There has been no increase in extreme weather events.
 
Your premise is false. There has been no increase in extreme weather events.

So, if a hurricane feeds off of the heat from a warm ocean, a warmer ocean won't produce more severe hurricanes?
And, if a warmer atmosphere produces changes in the jet stream, that won't result in storms going where they wouldn't otherwise go, thus producing unusual rain in one area, drought in another?

Really?
 
So, if a hurricane feeds off of the heat from a warm ocean, a warmer ocean won't produce more severe hurricanes?
And, if a warmer atmosphere produces changes in the jet stream, that won't result in storms going where they wouldn't otherwise go, thus producing unusual rain in one area, drought in another?

Really?

There has been no increase in the number or intensity of hurricanes.

[h=3]Global Tropical Cyclone Activity | Ryan Maue - Wx.Graphics[/h]wx.graphics/tropical/



by RN Maue - ‎Related articles
*Climatology from historical 1981-2010 Tropical cyclone best track datasets 2016 North Atlantic ACE of 140.5 includes January Hurricane Alex [SUP]**[/SUP]Preliminary values from real-time ATCF advisories and will become final when best-tracks are available from JTWC and NHC after post-season analysis Small differences have ...


[h=3][/h][h=3]Peer-Reviewed Literature & Graphics[/h]Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity: Geophys. Res. Lett. (2011), Abstract:
Tropical cyclone accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) has exhibited strikingly large global interannual variability during the past 40-years. In the pentad since 2006, Northern Hemisphere and global tropical cyclone ACE has decreased dramatically to the lowest levels since the late 1970s. Additionally, the frequency of tropical cyclones has reached a historical low. Here evidence is presented demonstrating that considerable variability in tropical cyclone ACE is associated with the evolution of the character of observed large-scale climate mechanisms including the El Nino Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. In contrast to record quiet North Pacific tropical cyclone activity in 2010, the North Atlantic basin remained very active by contributing almost one-third of the overall calendar year global ACE.

Figure: Global Hurricane Frequency (all & major) -- 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached at least hurricane-force (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 64-knots). The bottom time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached major hurricane strength (96-knots+). Adapted from Maue (2011) GRL.

 
There has been no increase in the number or intensity of hurricanes.

[h=3]Global Tropical Cyclone Activity | Ryan Maue - Wx.Graphics[/h]wx.graphics/tropical/



by RN Maue - ‎Related articles
*Climatology from historical 1981-2010 Tropical cyclone best track datasets 2016 North Atlantic ACE of 140.5 includes January Hurricane Alex [SUP]**[/SUP]Preliminary values from real-time ATCF advisories and will become final when best-tracks are available from JTWC and NHC after post-season analysis Small differences have ...


[h=3][/h][h=3]Peer-Reviewed Literature & Graphics[/h]Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity: Geophys. Res. Lett. (2011), Abstract:
Tropical cyclone accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) has exhibited strikingly large global interannual variability during the past 40-years. In the pentad since 2006, Northern Hemisphere and global tropical cyclone ACE has decreased dramatically to the lowest levels since the late 1970s. Additionally, the frequency of tropical cyclones has reached a historical low. Here evidence is presented demonstrating that considerable variability in tropical cyclone ACE is associated with the evolution of the character of observed large-scale climate mechanisms including the El Nino Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. In contrast to record quiet North Pacific tropical cyclone activity in 2010, the North Atlantic basin remained very active by contributing almost one-third of the overall calendar year global ACE.

Figure: Global Hurricane Frequency (all & major) -- 12-month running sums. The top time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached at least hurricane-force (maximum lifetime wind speed exceeds 64-knots). The bottom time series is the number of global tropical cyclones that reached major hurricane strength (96-knots+). Adapted from Maue (2011) GRL.


That does show that cyclones are no more frequent, except in the North Atlantic. That supports your allegation of no more extreme weather events recently.

As for drought in California:

California drought most severe in 1,200 years, study says

I'd heard it was only the most severe in the last 500 years.

and

Heat Wave Breaks Records in Australia

So, yes there are extremes of weather, but so what? You don't have to show that there aren't any extremes of weather to maintain that global warming is natural and no man made. These are two separate issues.
 
That does show that cyclones are no more frequent, except in the North Atlantic. That supports your allegation of no more extreme weather events recently.

As for drought in California:

California drought most severe in 1,200 years, study says

I'd heard it was only the most severe in the last 500 years.

and

Heat Wave Breaks Records in Australia

So, yes there are extremes of weather, but so what? You don't have to show that there aren't any extremes of weather to maintain that global warming is natural and no man made. These are two separate issues.

No increase in extreme events.
 
No increase in extreme events.

Around and around.... Say you're right, and there really are no extreme events, like 1,200 year droughts and such. What does that prove about the cause of global warming?
 
Around and around.... Say you're right, and there really are no extreme events, like 1,200 year droughts and such. What does that prove about the cause of global warming?

All if this XYear Whatever talk needs to go away, as the so-called experts have lost all credibility on such calls.

They need to stick to assertions that reality will ratify.
 
Exactly, which is what I've been saying all along.

So, why try to deny extreme weather events as a way of maintaining that global warming is natural?

I'm not denying anything. I'm only pointing out there has been no increase in such events.
 
Wildfires
[h=1]Jerry Brown vetoed enhanced requirements for undergrounding power lines, blames CA wildfires on nebulous “climate change”[/h]While Brown proclaims larges wildfires “the new normal”, here’s some scrutiny on his own incompetence in preventing wildfires Guest essay by Larry Hamlin In September 2016 California Governor Brown vetoed Senate Bill 1463 which enhanced requirements for the CPUC and state Forestry and Fire Protection to facilitate the undergrounding of power lines in high fire…
 
Wildfires exacerbated by Climate Change:

Wildfires_UCUSA.jpg
 
Wildfires exacerbated by Climate Change:

View attachment 67226609

An unlinked graphic has no standing.

Meanwhile:

". . . Around the 1970s, some government agencies began adopting “let it burn policies” if human habitat was not threatened. An increasing use of prescribed burns attempted to reduce abnormal fuel loads and restore the natural fire balance. But fire ecologists still “estimated that approximately 3 to 6 times more area must be burned to restore historical fire regimes.” The unnaturally low fire frequencies of the 1980s and 90s can be seen in Figure 5 from a 1999 research paper by Dr. Swetnam. Based on fire scars of old living trees from 64 southwest study sites, fires were 5 to 15 times more numerous and widespread between 1700 and 1880 than during the 1990s. When global warming demagogues argue climate change has now resulted in 5 times more fires than observed in the 1970s, they fail to inform the public this increase is largely due to a shift away from the previous complete fire suppression policy to selectively allowing fires to burn.

Figure from Swetnam (1999) Historical Fire Regime Patterns in the Southwestern United States
Not only were fires naturally more common before “global warming”, earlier fires could be huge. Newspaper articles from Tucson, Arizona reported individual fires that scorched over a million acres before 1890. Wisconsin’s Peshtigo Fire blackened 1.5 million acres in 1871 and over 3 million acres were torched in the Big Blowup (aka Great Fire of 1910). The largest fire in Canadian history was the Miramichi Fire of 1825 that burned 3 million acres in News Brunswick and extended into the state of Maine. Unfortunately, large fires are more likely today because past fire suppression has caused an unnatural build up fuels. . . ."




[h=1]Wildfires: Separating Demagoguery from the Science[/h]Guest essay by Jim Steele Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University and author of Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism Published in Range Magazine winter 2017/2018 In 2016 Climate Central, notorious global warming demagogues, published the article Climate Change’s Fingerprints All Over California Wildfires. Ignoring a well-documented history…

December 3, 2017 in Wildfires.
 
Wildfires in California are nothing new, but having this many fires in December is quite unusual:

While this December has been particularly active, the month typically tends to be one of the calmer months in terms of wildfires.

There have been only eight California wildfires that burned more than 300 acres in December from 2000 to 2015. The second lowest months for large fire activity are January and February, according to CalFire.

In comparison, there have already been six wildfires that burned more than 300 acres this December.

Fire suppression and overgrowth of chaparral has been going on for decades now. Wildfires have been the result of the increase in fuel loads in the mountains of California. People are now starting to catch on and support controlled burns and other means of clearing the brush, but it takes time to make up for decades of fire suppression and underbrush growth.

But December is not a part of the normal fire season. Something is different. Trees are losing their leaves later and blooming earlier than ever before. There are deep cycles of drought and abundant precipitation. Last winter, there was record snowfall, but it was only in the highest elevations. Snow at the 6 and 7 thousand foot levels melted off quickly, but the High Sierra didn't open up to hikers until much later than usual. The year before saw the driest year in over a thousand years. There was no snow at all in March as high as 9,000 feet. This year, the local ski resort looks like this in late December:

China Peak - Web Cams

This webcam is about 8,000 feet in elevation. It should be looking at deep snow this time of year.

Weather patterns are not the same as they were in the past. Anyone who looks can see changes all around.
 
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