Of course you knew that, but things have changed.

It's official, the evidence that the Earth has been rapidly warming since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is overwhelming and undeniable. There is no hope of reversing this trend in the near future, especially since we are rapidly increasing the use of oil-burning automobiles.

Now we can expect to die sooner than we hoped, and probably not from the typical hear attack or stroke as most would expect. The violent future that we have created will offer us a much wider variety of ways to die.

The era of development of the human race into an "advanced" technological civilization has come full circle. Now the time has come to reap what we have sown. We will soon discover that we are not as "evolved" as we thought we were, but in reality our civilization has actually de-evolved, and set the stage for our extinction.

Report: Shorter lake and river ice seasons confirm global warming

September 7, 2000 Web posted at: 1:53 PM EDT (1753 GMT)

MADISON, Wisconsin (CNN) -- Records from riverboat captains, Shinto monks and others dating to the 15th century confirm a dramatic warming trend in the Earth's recent history, scientists said Thursday.

Studying climate observations from dozens of sites in the Northern Hemisphere, an international team of researchers concluded that temperatures have risen steadily for at least 150 years.

They compiled data on lake and river ice cover from newspaper articles, business journals and individual diaries, some as far back as 1443.

Piecing together a historic portrait, the researchers said the Northern Hemisphere has experienced increasingly shorter winter seasons since 1840.

"The thing that makes this catchy is that this is a very simple way of looking at what happened over the last 150 years," said John Magnuson, lead author of the report, to be published Friday in the journal Science.

"These are direct observations of people. Some were religious people, some were fur traders," said Magnuson, a freshwater expert at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

They include:

 Holy men in Japan who kept precise records at Lake Suwa, where deities were believed to have traveled on surface ice.

 Clerics in Central Europe who walked a Madonna statue over Lake Constance when it first froze each season.

 Fur traders and riverboat skippers in Canada who measured river ice levels.

The records, which also come from the United States, Russia and Finland, indicate that lakes and rivers now freeze an average of 8.7 days later and ice cover begins disintegrating 9.8 days earlier than 150 years ago.

The findings are consistent with an increase in air temperatures during the time of 1.8 degrees C (almost 4 degrees F). Climate records confirm a rise of at least 1 degree C (2 degrees F) over the past century.

The trend corresponds with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Yet significant warming takes place well before its peak, suggesting other causes besides greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

"These increases are generally consistent with scenarios for greenhouse gas-forced climate warming, but they may be related to other drivers, such as changes in solar activity," wrote Magnuson and his colleagues in Science.

-- What Matters Is (what@have.we.learned?), September 07, 2000

Answers

The records, which also come from the United States, Russia and Finland, indicate that lakes and rivers now freeze an average of 8.7 days later and ice cover begins disintegrating 9.8 days earlier than 150 years ago.

The findings are consistent with an increase in air temperatures during the time of 1.8 degrees C (almost 4 degrees F). Climate records confirm a rise of at least 1 degree C (2 degrees F) over the past century. ..................................

simple math: temp climb for 150 yrs.:....4 F/150 ->.0266666 /year F.

temp climp last 100 yrs.: 2 F/100 .... 2/150 --> .02

OR........simple: **RATE** OF WARMING ****DECREASING*** by ONE THIRD.

Translations: so-called "warming" slowing down. And with increased industrialization plus greatly increased number of humans.

What do the Greenies have to say about that??

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 07, 2000.

Watch out, CPR is trying to do math again! Where is his fallacy this time? It's in his assumption that "at least one degree Centigrade" = "exactly one degree Centigrade". A temperature change that is "at least one degree Centigrade" could be much higher than that, invalidating his "precise" calculation that global warming is slowing down. For example, if the actual increase over the last 100 years was 2 degrees Centigrade, which is definitely "at least one degree Centigrade", then it would account for the entire estimated warming described in the article.

Keep trying, Charlie. Eventually, I'm sure you'll get a simple math problem correct. After all, enough monkeys hitting typewriters at random would eventually produce all the works of Shakespeare, so there's always hope for you!

-- ABC (a@b.c), September 07, 2000.

ABCasshole: what do you think my Master's is in?

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 07, 2000.

CPR:

simple math: temp climb for 150 yrs.:....4 F/150 ->.0266666 /year F.

temp climp last 100 yrs.: 2 F/100 .... 2/150 --> .02

OR........simple: **RATE** OF WARMING ****DECREASING*** by ONE THIRD

These numbers are much too unreliable to lend any significance to a rate difference of 0.0066666. But you have identified one of the questioned areas. Based on this data, why would the heat increase have started and continued at this rate long before the peak of industrial emissions , if industrialization was responsible for climate warming.

As far as I know, there are no acceptible answers to that. Could be that the data is wrong. Could be another cause for the warming. We will have to wait and see.

Best wishes,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 07, 2000.

BUT,,,,if the data is bad currently or in the past, why is it even circulated?

(Ans> a lot of grant money is issued to "study" this).

There are studies that claim there has been NO increase in the past 30-40 years. There is not even agreement on how many 'data points' need to be taken to justify ANY statements about anything.

Did the "observer" 150 years ago, measure the temp in a beaker that was graduated and who was it graduated. Did they allow for the C. of Expansion at the extremes? How did they measure the "climate"? Did they count inches of rain only noting the ht. of the miniscus??

Somehow, CNN is not reporting what some inquiring minds want to know.

This 2 or 4 F increase seems to be quoted everywhere. However, how you measure things is far more important once you start trying to "extrapolate". At the rates given above what would be "dangerous", 5, 10, 15 F average increase? The case could be made for rising temps. increasing overall grain production because it could allow a 2nd or 3rd or even 4th crop in some areas.

Absolutely and the fact that the whole argument for warming hinges on lakes melting etc. sort of means little unless you know how reliable the info was long ago.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 07, 2000.

All this talk about global warming keeps reminding me of this poem:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire;

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if I have to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

--Robert Frost

-- (Kb8um8@yahoo.com), September 07, 2000.

CPR:

" BUT,,,,if the data is bad currently or in the past, why is it even circulated?

(Ans> a lot of grant money is issued to "study" this). "

Don't think so. At science meetings it is circulated for discussion. Of course at such scientific conferences it comes with an explanation of the possible errors which are also discussed. Just went to one in June.

"There are studies that claim there has been NO increase in the past 30-40 years. There is not even agreement on how many 'data points' need to be taken to justify ANY statements about anything. "

True, but there are also studies that claim a much greater increase. This is a question that is in discussion at the scientific level.

"Did the "observer" 150 years ago, measure the temp in a beaker that was graduated and who was it graduated. Did they allow for the C. of Expansion at the extremes? How did they measure the "climate"? Did they count inches of rain only noting the ht. of the miniscus?? "

While older observations exist and some are very accurate, estimates of temperature differences in this article are not from actual measurements. Actually, much of the work in the 1800's is very carefully done. We have started making our students read papers from the late 1800's and the early 1900's so they can get some idea of how careful and clever early scientists were.

Somehow, CNN is not reporting what some inquiring minds want to know.

This 2 or 4 F increase seems to be quoted everywhere.

Answer: don't get your science facts from the press. In general, in my experience, a science journalist is someone with two or three semesters of intro science and three years of Journalism courses [of course there are exceptions].

As you have said many times in reference to Y2K, check the qualifications of the source.

Best wishes,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 07, 2000.

Actually, if true, these numbers support the theory that global warming (it it is occuring) is not related to human activity, or at least not to post-WWII industrialization. As the original post notes:

"The trend corresponds with the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Yet significant warming takes place well before its peak, suggesting other causes besides greenhouse gas emissions from human activities."

And, of course, if we have to abandon the entire "industrial revolution" to stop this trend and go back to horses and homes lit by fire -- well, end of debate. I'm not willing to do that, and I doubt that 99% plus percent of the population is either.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), September 07, 2000.

EH:

Long time no C. How is it going. Actually the Frost poem may be a good definition for this time. Everyone thinks that science gives absolute answers at one time [can be true of techonology but not of science in such a complex field].

There are no easy answers; we need to wait and see; and as CPR has suggested: clear the wheat from the chaff.

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 07, 2000.

The facts are in. Industrial progress has dramatically and undeniably increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Greenhouses gases cause climactic warming. Levels of CO2 have been both much higher and much lower in prehistoric times.

Sorry, link impaired - this is from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Lots of info here. Check out the FACE link on the main page.

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/home.html http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/programs/FACE/facelinks.html

Cheers

-- thinkstwice (thinkstwice@earthlink.com), September 07, 2000.

Let's see if I can split those two links

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/home.html

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/programs/FACE/facelinks.html

Cheers

-- thinkstwice (thinkstwice@earthlink.com), September 07, 2000.

Geez, time for bed, that wasn't the right link to the "FACE" homepage

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/programs/FACE/face.html

Cheers

-- thinkstwice (thinkstwice@earthlink.com), September 07, 2000.

thinkstwice:

Perhaps you should thinkthrice. Not directly my field, but I have talked to some of these folks. They wouldn't agree with the information in the links. Data doesn't fit it yet. CPR is right in his intuition. Science is not as simple as a chant at a rally or a poster slogan.

We will need to wait. But then, you already know the answer, even though no qualified person does.

Best wishes,,,, Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 07, 2000.

Thanks, Z,

Didn't even know anyone notice I was here; I'm impressed that you noticed I was gone. Spent the last month an a half out West, doing some very light weight technical climbing and some backpacking in the Wind River Range.

If you want to get a preview of what TEOTWAWKI would be like, you had to be out West this year. Dodged fire closures the whole time; fires determined when and where I would be.

I was most recently in Custer, SD. The "Jasper Cave" fire is now contained; when I got there last Wednesday, it was not. Got in in late evening. With the sun setting behind the smoke(giving the whole place a rather yellow, smokey,doom like effect), and every other car on the road either a Hummvee, a fire truck or a state police car, it looked like something out of a modern version a Vietnam war movie.

I did, however, have a very good time and indeed did some very good backpacking. Apparently, the "advisory fire warnings" really cut down on the number of people in the backcountry.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), September 07, 2000.

EH:

I know the Wind River from the olden days. Climbing there used to be bad. If you were injured, they had to bring in jet copters from southern Wyoming to get you. I spent weeks there in my younger days.

Fires: I have flown over them two times earlier this year. I don't know if you remember Gregor, but he was at Darby photographing that fire. I will see him next week and look at the photos. Should be interesting.

Hope things are going well.

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 07, 2000.

1st world cleansing by flood=provable--2nd will be fire! plenty of available =fuel stored up!-for chain-reaction!

-- i believe the bible! (dogs@zianet.com), September 07, 2000.

Z - thanks for the input, but I don't understand your response. I am always willing to think it through again. Data is data and there is good data now from multiple sources and different experimental and archealogical methods. Are you saying that the experts disagree about the data, or that they disagree on the meaning?

There was no opinion expressed by me on the ultimate impact of global warming, ore even if the increase in CO2 is a sustainable trend. The only thing we know right now is that CO2 and average global temperature go hand-in-hand, up and down, for millenia. We don't know if one causes the other, or of they are both resultants of other factors (like solar activity).

Cheers

-- thinkstwice (thinkstwice@earthlink.com), September 07, 2000.

What humans have been doing to this planet does not fit into any convenient data models. Skeptics will be saying that they don't see any data indicating we have a problem all the way up until the day when the planet becomes so hot that their skin bursts into flames.

-- data doesn't produce disasters (disasters @ produce. data), September 07, 2000.

AT LAST, Idiot Al slips. Tell us Idiot Spouter, How did Sodom and Gamorrah perish? And what did The Lord promise after that?

Yet you write: 1st world cleansing by flood=provable--2nd will be fire! plenty of available =fuel stored up!-for chain-reaction!

-- i believe the bible! (dogs@zianet.com), September 07, 2000.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 08, 2000.

In about 3 billion years the earth will become so hot that human flesh burns into flames but human life will be gone long before that. The solar system is about 5 billion years old (again scientists disagree on that too because of the data available). It has been estimated that it will continue for about another 5 billion years. After observing other stars birth and deaths, scientists believe that the sun will first explode, meaning its mass will expand beyond the earth, and become red due to the molecular reactions. Then it will implode, collapse its mass and become extremely dense. That's how black holes are formed. If humans actually believe they are more powerful than nature, they are truly self centered.

Again, human life will be long gone and who will care?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 08, 2000.

Sorry, more comment.

So, what have we learned? That we human beings are about as significant as a pimple on the butt of t-rex.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 08, 2000.

Gee, Maria a secret Doomer?

I think that sounds like fun so I have decided to stay and watch.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 08, 2000.

Hey, you Wind River hikers and climbers, have you read Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness by Doug Peacock? When he came back from Vietnam, about as strung out as he could be without being locked up, he headed to the Wind River area of Wyoming and Montana. It's a great book--you would like it, and not soon forget it.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), September 08, 2000.

Maria, were you being sarcastic? I wasn't sure. You are correct of course, there are probably dozens of cosmic phenomena that could obliterate us without a trace, but things like the death of our sun are just too far in the future to consider.

Looking for and tracking big asteroids with the eventual goal of altering their paths or destroying them doesn't seem that far-fetched. It's kind of the cosmic equivalent of a flu vaccine.

We definitely have the technology to look for them, and it wouldn't cost that much. Besides, who knows what else we might find if we started lookiing a little closer.

Cheers

-- thinkstwice (thinkstwice@earthlink.com), September 08, 2000.

Gilda:

Thanks, I will give it a look see when I return. It is possible that I have met this person. It would be back in the years when I lived near Yellowstone. The person I am thinking of was studying Grizzley Bears. I only remember because someone quipped that his name sounded more like the name of a bear food than of a bear researcher. Of course, that was some time ago, and it could have been someone else.

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), September 08, 2000.

Of course , we are all all gonna "exit" this this Time Frame. But while you are here, what difference can you make?

-- For those (who@hearadsong.com), September 10, 2000.