Extreme weather, National Geographic

[Old Rocks]

A very good article concerning the extreme weather that we have been experiancing.

Extreme Weather - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine

The weekend forecast for Nashville, Tennessee, called for two to four inches of rain. But by the afternoon of Saturday, May 1, 2010, parts of the city had seen more than six inches, and the rain was still coming down in sheets.

Mayor Karl Dean was in the city’s Emergency Communications Center monitoring the first reports of flash flooding when something on a TV screen caught his eye. It was a live shot of cars and trucks on Interstate 24 being swamped by a tributary of the Cumberland River southeast of the city. Floating past them in the slow lane was a 40-foot-long portable building from the Lighthouse Christian School.

“We’ve got a building running into cars,” the TV anchorman was saying.

Dean had been in the “war room” for hours. But when he saw the building floating down the highway, he says, “it became very clear to me what an extreme situation we had on our hands.” Soon 911 calls were coming in from every part of the city. Police, fire, and rescue teams were dispatched in boats. One crew in a skiff headed out to I-24 to pluck the driver of an 18-wheeler from the chest-high water. Other teams pulled families off rooftops and workers from flooded warehouses. Still, 11 people died in the city that weekend.

 

[skookerasbil]

Anybody else figure out what the point of this thread is???

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, now when you are being directly impacted by the extreme weather events in your home and at the grocery store, you might take a bit of a jaundiced view of those that are telling your it ain't happening.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Lot's of rain? Obviously Global Warming!

Better give all our money to Algore in the form of Carbon Taxes.

 

[martybegan]

Lot's of rain? Obviously Global Warming!

Better give all our money to Algore in the form of Carbon Taxes.

Lots of rain: Man made global warming
Too little rain: Man made global warming


Too many hurricanes: Man made global warming
Too few hurricanes: Man made global warming

Then of course we go to the solutions.

WE WANT SOLAR AND WIND ONLY!!

Um, Nuclear is carbon neutral, and while the waste issue is a challenge im sure we can figure some way of handling it.

WIND AND SOLAR ONLY!!!

Ok then, what about natural gas, its still a fossil fuel, but is far more efficent than coal, thus less carbon

NO! WIND AND SOLAR ONLY.

Ah, what about hydro power?

THINK OF THE FISHES!!! WIND AND SOLAR ONLY

 

[Old Rocks]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtRvcXUIyZg]Weather and Climate Summit - Day 5, Jennifer Francis - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Mad Scientist]

Lot's of rain? Obviously Global Warming!

Better give all our money to Algore in the form of Carbon Taxes.

Lots of rain: Man made global warming
Too little rain: Man made global warming


Too many hurricanes: Man made global warming
Too few hurricanes: Man made global warming

Then of course we go to the solutions.

WE WANT SOLAR AND WIND ONLY!!

Um, Nuclear is carbon neutral, and while the waste issue is a challenge im sure we can figure some way of handling it.

WIND AND SOLAR ONLY!!!

Ok then, what about natural gas, its still a fossil fuel, but is far more efficent than coal, thus less carbon

NO! WIND AND SOLAR ONLY.

Ah, what about hydro power?

THINK OF THE FISHES!!! WIND AND SOLAR ONLY

You left out the HUGE Gov't subsidies which is the ONLY reason they like it in the first place!

 

[martybegan]

Lot's of rain? Obviously Global Warming!

Better give all our money to Algore in the form of Carbon Taxes.

Lots of rain: Man made global warming
Too little rain: Man made global warming


Too many hurricanes: Man made global warming
Too few hurricanes: Man made global warming

Then of course we go to the solutions.

WE WANT SOLAR AND WIND ONLY!!

Um, Nuclear is carbon neutral, and while the waste issue is a challenge im sure we can figure some way of handling it.

WIND AND SOLAR ONLY!!!

Ok then, what about natural gas, its still a fossil fuel, but is far more efficent than coal, thus less carbon

NO! WIND AND SOLAR ONLY.

Ah, what about hydro power?

THINK OF THE FISHES!!! WIND AND SOLAR ONLY

You left out the HUGE Gov't subsidies which is the ONLY reason they like it in the first place!

I think they like it to start with because to the less informed, solar and wind look like getting something for nothing. No delivery trucks, no apparent waste products, a theoretically unlimited (human scale) supply. What they ignore is the intermittent nature of those sources, and the fact that our current power grid is reliant on the ability to match demand with supply at all times.

I have a well educated college professor relative who is a die hard global warming believer. Unlike alot of them, however, he is a huge proponent of nuclear power as the backbone of a grid containing elements of wind/solar and hydro/tidal/geothermal.

To some in the environmental movement he would be considered a heretic.

 

[Old Rocks]

To most thinking people your whole post would be considered nonsense. Most of the people that post serious science here support nuclear, with serious reservations concerning the cost and waste products. A solid mix of all the alternatives to supplant fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Rain?

OMFG!

When has it ever rained before?

Rocks is this rain that you speak of the water vapor that causes 90% of the heat trapping?

 

[Mad Scientist]

Nothing wrong with oil, it's 100% natural.

 

[Old Rocks]

NASA - Water Vapor Confirmed as Major Player in Climate Change

AIRS is the first instrument to distinguish differences in the amount of water vapor at all altitudes within the troposphere. Using data from AIRS, the team observed how atmospheric water vapor reacted to shifts in surface temperatures between 2003 and 2008. By determining how humidity changed with surface temperature, the team could compute the average global strength of the water vapor feedback.

“This new data set shows that as surface temperature increases, so does atmospheric humidity,” Dessler said. “Dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere makes the atmosphere more humid. And since water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas, the increase in humidity amplifies the warming from carbon dioxide."

Specifically, the team found that if Earth warms 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, the associated increase in water vapor will trap an extra 2 Watts of energy per square meter (about 11 square feet).

"That number may not sound like much, but add up all of that energy over the entire Earth surface and you find that water vapor is trapping a lot of energy," Dessler said. "We now think the water vapor feedback is extraordinarily strong, capable of doubling the warming due to carbon dioxide alone."

Because the new precise observations agree with existing assessments of water vapor's impact, researchers are more confident than ever in model predictions that Earth's leading greenhouse gas will contribute to a temperature rise of a few degrees by the end of the century.

"This study confirms that what was predicted by the models is really happening in the atmosphere," said Eric Fetzer, an atmospheric scientist who works with AIRS data at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Water vapor is the big player in the atmosphere as far as climate is concerned."

 

[whitehall]

Who do we blame for the earth's extreme weather that carved out the Great Lakes and the Hudson river? Forty years ago NOAA was predicting a new "ice age". Democrat strategist and current mayor of the Country's most crooked city, Rohm Emanuel, once advised democrats to "never let a crisis go to waste". Today the sad remnants of the left wing "global warming" crisis and global extortion racket are still trying to make a political issue out of every disaster.

 

[Old Rocks]

Who do we blame for the earth's extreme weather that carved out the Great Lakes and the Hudson river? Forty years ago NOAA was predicting a new "ice age". Democrat strategist and current mayor of the Country's most crooked city, Rohm Emanuel, once advised democrats to "never let a crisis go to waste". Today the sad remnants of the left wing "global warming" crisis and global extortion racket are still trying to make a political issue out of every disaster.

Now you know that you are a lying dumb ass. Care to back your asshole assertations with evidence.

 

[whitehall]

Who do we blame for the earth's extreme weather that carved out the Great Lakes and the Hudson river? Forty years ago NOAA was predicting a new "ice age". Democrat strategist and current mayor of the Country's most crooked city, Rohm Emanuel, once advised democrats to "never let a crisis go to waste". Today the sad remnants of the left wing "global warming" crisis and global extortion racket are still trying to make a political issue out of every disaster.

Now you know that you are a lying dumb ass. Care to back your asshole assertations with evidence.

Um, the grooves in the rocks in Central Park. Google Rohm Emanuel/crisis and ...um...see what you get. The problem for the warming left is that they are scientifically myopic. They ignore the evidence they don't like or they are paid to not like and they lash out at people who try to remind them about the real world.

 

[martybegan]

To most thinking people your whole post would be considered nonsense. Most of the people that post serious science here support nuclear, with serious reservations concerning the cost and waste products. A solid mix of all the alternatives to supplant fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

How is my post nonsense? You have a strong portion of the environmental movement thinking they can get power from intermittent sources. You may be mor reasonable, but to consider me "non thinking" would be a grave mistake.

I have a Masters in Chemical Engineering, and have worked in Environmental Engineering my whole 15 year career. Whay is your scientific background?

Edit: By the way, Go fuck yourself with a tire iron for negging me.

 

[waltky]

Granny says if the global keeps gettin' warmer, we ain't gonna have no food to eat, den we gonna starve, den we all gonna die...

Changing Calif. climate a threat to crops
Friday, September 28, 2012 - Farmers have always been gamblers, long accustomed to betting on the probabilities of the weather. But for the Napa Valley, where temperatures have been ideal for the wine industry, shifts in the Earth's climate could be a game-changer.

"They're used to rolling the dice every year," said Stuart Weiss, a conservation biologist and chief scientist at the Creekside Center for Earth Observation in Menlo Park, which assists growers and municipalities dealing with the disruptions caused by the changing climate. "Now, though, climate change is stacking the dice." During the next 30 years, Weiss estimates, the temperature in the Napa Valley will rise by 1.8 degrees - a significant shift for a wine industry whose product can be affected by the smallest of temperature changes. Such a warming would be an 80 percent jump over the historical increase of about 1 degree every three decades, the change recorded since weather data in Wine Country were first kept around the turn of the 20th century.

It isn't just Wine Country that is having to adapt. From the vast fields of fruits and nuts in the Central Valley to wheat farms in the Imperial Valley, changing weather is altering the fundamental conditions for growing food, prompting a reassessment of the way California's largest industry operates. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Risk Management Agency, which pays farmers when bad weather ruins their crops, has identified climate change as one of the major risk factors for U.S. agriculture. In a 2010 report, it paid particular attention to the vulnerabilities of California, which produces 95 percent of the country's apricots, almonds, artichokes, figs, kiwis, raisin grapes, olives, cling peaches, dried plums, persimmons, pistachios and walnuts.

"Since the production of these commodities is so concentrated into one geographical area, the climatic impacts in these agricultural markets could be profound," the report concluded. The agency suggested an adaptation strategy: more research into "drought-tolerant, heat-tolerant and other crop varieties better suited to the changing conditions."

Rising salt level

Those changing conditions include not only the possibility of hotter, drier weather, but also an influx of salt as sea levels rise and ocean water pushes farther into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Daniel Cozad, executive director of the Central Valley Salinity Coalition, a group of farmers, businessmen and government officials, said some farmers in the western valley are already being forced to adapt by switching from salt-sensitive crops like strawberries and avocados to less sensitive - and less profitable - crops like alfalfa and wheat.

The California office of the Risk Management Agency is considering whether year-round farming is a reasonable risk for the agency to assume in the Central and Imperial valleys, where water stresses are intensifying. In the Central Valley, those stresses have been caused, in part, by a drop in runoff in the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers during spring and summer months, when it's central to irrigation. Over the past century, the state Department of Water Resources has measured a steady 10 percent decline in runoff from April to July. In recent years, the rate has accelerated to as much as 20 percent.

[/b]Fallow fields[/b]

 

[skookerasbil]

To most thinking people your whole post would be considered nonsense. Most of the people that post serious science here support nuclear, with serious reservations concerning the cost and waste products. A solid mix of all the alternatives to supplant fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

Ray.........on the fossil fuel thing.........whats your timeline? Because by 2035, the energy pie is going to look very simillar to this.................

The renewables slice will be somewhat bigger but not appreciably bigger and the coal slice will be smaller and the natural gas larger. But basically, pretty much unchanged from the above posted graph, and no science data is going to be changing that. I dont think you realize how much of our lives are connected to fossil fuels Ray...........which have connections to many, many important industries which provide tens of millions of jobs. There are very clear political realities attached to those interests.

Much of the environmental crowd reads stuff like this >>>>>>

The Economy and Fossil Fuels | The New Economics Party


..........and takes it as gospel. Philisophical nonsense based upon a romance with the Keynesian economic model which has never worlked in the history of the world. Tooo.........problem is, its a total crock of shit presented in a very compelling fashion and gobbled up by the hopelessly naive of our society.


In all actuality, here is the sobering truth for the environmentalist crowd >>>>>>

U.S. Fossil Fuel Boom Dims Glow of Clean Energy by Keith Schneider: Yale Environment 360


There is currently a gigantic boom in the fossil fuel industry in America.........its the story that isnt told in any media outlet because it comepletely decimates their coordinated narrative ( a narrative, but the way, that the alarmist crowd automatically buys into hook, line and stinker) of this energy fantasy. Meanwhile, in Ohio alone, there are trillions of cubic feet of natural gas in one single 4,000 foot deep shale area. For those heady enough to actually notice........ummmmm......the cost of cheap sources of energy is sorta getting a bit important these days!!!. The fact is......politically, it is emerging as a HUGE factor moving forward. Indeed..........there are very few voters who these days are interested in having their electricity rates doubled NO MATTER WHAT THE REASON. At an absolute maximum, 20% of the voting public might disagree = politically irrelevant.


Now.......there are members on here that cant stand me because I paint a very real and sobering picture which hits the warming contingent in a public forum like an RPG hitting a jeep on the battlefield.

In my view, there are occassional visits made in her by young people looking for a direction with all of this. I see it as my role to provide them with a bigger picture so they dont go out and spend years and years of their lives chasing some nutty-ass pipe dream.

Young and naive people rarely recognize that there are necessary tradeoffs to embracing public policy decisions that have no interest in results but based on a dream reality that wil never, never, ever be realized. Real and tangible costs DO MATTER in the real world............an inconvenient truth no environmentalist ever wants to acknowledge!!!


Here is just a small example.................but the environmentalist crowd acts as if it is as much of a concern as a misquito on an elephant!!!!

Behold this photo of a medium sized rail yard

..........there are hundreds across the United States operating diesel locomotives that cost 2.5 million/pop and are responsible for moving ALL OF OUR FOOD ACROSS COUNTRY. Without them..........we dont eat. Their lifespan is approximately 30 years with engine retrofitting. So..........what? Are we instead going to go to these for moving freight and food across out country??

>>> Interestingly.............almost 50% of these locomotives are made by GE, a company that the current administration ( suppossedly big into renewables) lets have its way!!!<<<





You see........the alarmist contingent are big into talking about doing away with fossil fuels but never, ever, ever talk about the necessary tradeoffs to this immense fantasy. Unfortuantely for them............they are not at all politically viable.



Which means..................they lose.......no matter what the science is saying



Accordingly, that is why when some naive mental case comes in here and spews the hatred about people like me being part of the "denier cult morons", I can simply laugh my ass off from now until the cows come home!!! My side has a hoot in this place because it is grounded in demonstrated, proven realities.......... and the other side is meltiing down with tirades of angst and misery. They have ZERO, zilch, nada, egg to show for all of thier efforts.

Which begs the question? Who's not winning?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw]George Carlin - Saving the Planet - YouTube[/ame]

 

[skookerasbil]

Yo Frank..........so much winning!!!!