Global Warming.

dlofnep

..is in effect. We've had nearly a month of near solid sunshine here in waterford. I've never seen anything like it before. The sun is splitting the rocks, something we're normally accustomed to for 2 weeks in July IF we're lucky. I've seen summer pass us by some years, but this year - summer has kicked in 3 months early and has already gone twice as long as it normally lasts.

We're not getting any rain, other than that generated from the mass heat from thunderstorms.

There is no denying that Global Warming is now in effect and hitting Ireland in a big way. We might not see the negative effects today, but I think we will in our lifetimes.

Has anybody else noticed this span of sun?

solas

I thought this was a national thing, obviously I can only vouch for the extent of the heat here in the S.E. It's difficult to work in and I can honestly say today my mind thinking the same thoughts, is this direct global warming effect.

dlofnep

I've a feeling Hurricanes are going to thrash the US this year, and it's just going to get worse. I don't want to go on one of those conspiracy binges, but it's staring us right in the face. I've never seen anything like this in my entire life. I spoke to my former neighbour who comes to visit my parents every week - he's 75 and said he's never seen anything like it either.

solas

I've a feeling hurricanes are going to thrash US this year :eek:

dlofnep

I hope not But I don't think current in the atlantic would allow hurricanes to hit us.

As far as warming goes, I guess it's not just us: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/world/europe/30cnd-europe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Big Knox

Have been thinkin the very same thing the past few days. Havn't seen a year like this in my life. Its been like the middle of August for the past 4 weeks and it's non stop. Very weird and I put it down to the exact same thing. Not complaining as I love the hot weather but it's kinda scary. Climate change is gonna do its damage this year if ever.

JC 2K3

All I can say is that my life is pretty plain......

solas

I'll go root out my raindancing gear

daenis

There are some scientists saying that its all a load of crap. That the earth goes through these phases of climate change (ie the ice age). Don't really know that much about it though

thebaz

apparently its hitting the farmers hard -- the seasons are out of sync , and nature will go a bit crazy -- more worrying we had the warmest winter on record , what with 2 days frost in Dublin , rats and other vermin, and diseases will thrive in these unnatural conditions -- but seriously i'm sure mr. bush still doesn't see a problem , and will keep on polluting the world

McSandwich

you think it's hot here..spare a thought for drought hit Australia: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/04/19/australia.drought.reut/index.html

There's an interesting article in New Scientist about the Sun and how it could save us from global warming. Scientists say that solar activity has peaked during the past 50 years leading to a rise in atmospheric temperature ( though they point out that this is not the sole reason for global warming). In the coming years, solar activity will wane, reducing the heating effect and so will offset global warming to some degree (we hope!):

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19125691.100-global-warming-will-the-sun-come-to-our-rescue.html

brianthebard

Pfft, my granda's seen may month's like this, the Op is scaremongering, one month of early sun and suddenly global warming is undeniable. When its been like this for 15 years come back to me.

Endurance Man

Dont cows farts cause more global warming than man made gasses? That cant really be out fault.

wes

brianthebard wrote:

Pfft, my granda's seen may month's like this, the Op is scaremongering, one month of early sun and suddenly global warming is undeniable. When its been like this for 15 years come back to me.

Global warming is undeniable at this point......

While the OP's post is based on personal observations, it doesn't negate all the science that show global warming to be a reality. We are the cause and if we don't shape up, the s*** will hit the fan.

While those who come up other explanations have continually been proven wrong, they will crop up again and again funded by oil companies.

For more information go here:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/

thebaz

brianthebard wrote:

Pfft, my granda's seen may month's like this, the Op is scaremongering, one month of early sun and suddenly global warming is undeniable. When its been like this for 15 years come back to me.

these conditions have been in effect since March, and May has just begun , following an unnaturally warm winter throughout Europe -- Eastern and Central Europe are expeiencing massive temperature highs the past few months -- something weird is happening

solas

thebaz wrote:

-- something weird is happening

found this. I can't remember 1998 well enough to try and compare (el nino) though but wasn't that the year we had really intense hurricane winds in around christmas?

link

Alessandra

Ireland was once covered in ice you know. Don't be so alarmist. These things are cyclical... Although I too would welcome a little rain!

OctavarIan

Alessandra wrote:

Ireland was once covered in ice you know. Don't be so alarmist. These things are cyclical...

This. I doubt stone age humans shat themselves like this over a few months of weird weather. Sure they had the ice age, that must have been due to global cooling or something :rolleyes:

dlofnep

daenis wrote:

There are some scientists saying that its all a load of crap. That the earth goes through these phases of climate change (ie the ice age). Don't really know that much about it though

The current levels have never been seen on earth in nearly a million years, and that's only because that's how far back the records go which are stored in the lower ice in the ice caps.

Pfft, my granda's seen may month's like this, the Op is scaremongering, one month of early sun and suddenly global warming is undeniable. When its been like this for 15 years come back to me.

It's been splitting the rocks since March. All of the hottest years on record have been in the past 15 years. 2006 was the hottest year ever recorded, with what looks like will be superseeded this year. Not to mention the unusual trend of hurricanes blasting away at America, more being recorded every year above normal. The unusual flooding across Europe.

I'm not scaremongering.. Global warming is in effect, I've seen it and felt it myself.

McSandwich

Alessandra wrote:

Ireland was once covered in ice you know. Don't be so alarmist. These things are cyclical... Although I too would welcome a little rain!

True, but this time we're here, sticking big spanners in a finely balanced system, which could change the cycle significantly..

Alessandra

We're all doomed:eek::) So what, we get a few days of sunshine unexpectedly, bet it rains all summer... My granny always said summers had gotten a lot cooler since her day, things are probably just straightening themselves out.

McSandwich

brianthebard wrote:

Pfft, my granda's seen may month's like this, the Op is scaremongering, one month of early sun and suddenly global warming is undeniable. When its been like this for 15 years come back to me.

If it was just an unusually warm May and nothing else then yes, but combined with our sequence of warm winters the signs point to something bigger (not to mention what's happening elsewhere in the world).

dlofnep

Alessandra wrote:

We're all doomed:eek::) So what, we get a few days of sunshine unexpectedly, bet it rains all summer... My granny always said summers had gotten a lot cooler since her day, things are probably just straightening themselves out.

It's not just a few days of sunshine.. It's the growth of flooding, hurricanes, worldwide heat.. drowth, famine - unusual weather patterns.

I am sure if it was just a few odd days of sun, Governments worldwide wouldn't be throwing billions down the drain to curb it.

I'm positive if there was an asteroid going to hit us, there would be still people on here posting about how it will miss us and we'll all be fine.

Alessandra

Did these Hurricanes and famines and extremes of weather only start happening recently? I think not. Weather is by its' very nature extreme. Its like people saying society is gone to hell these days, when in fact people have always been bad/good. Weather is either bad/good. Natural disasters relaing to weather have always ocurred and will continue to occur, it's not a new phenomena. I refuse to believe this hype!

solas

At this stage its almost irrelevant, whether you consider the effects as natural cyclical events. The truth is humans weren't pumping unnatural amounts of carbon dioxide into the amosphere during the stone age (or any other age prior to the industrialised) and no matter how you look at it that's a lot of crap for any biosphere to handle. If it's all hype than at least it's aiding constructive processes in an effort to eliminate the unecessarily harmful waste in and of our environs and hopefully invite humans to get their sh!t together. and clean it up effectively

Call Me Jimmy

daenis wrote:

There are some scientists saying that its all a load of crap. That the earth goes through these phases of climate change (ie the ice age). Don't really know that much about it though

That's what I think, the earth has been here long before us and it has had an ice age without our intervention. We are basing our weather peaks on the last 200 years or so. The earth has been here billions of years and I'm sure it has had higher peaks in that time.

And also, global warming happening that fast? We get a couple of hot summers and it's here?

dlofnep

Alessandra wrote:

Did these Hurricanes and famines and extremes of weather only start happening recently? I think not. Weather is by its' very nature extreme. Its like people saying society is gone to hell these days, when in fact people have always been bad/good. Weather is either bad/good. Natural disasters relaing to weather have always ocurred and will continue to occur, it's not a new phenomena. I refuse to believe this hype!

Yes, infact they did just start happening recently.

2005 had the most hurricanes and storms in recorded history (reference: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/hurricanes05.html)

And while the US was being bombarded with Hurricanes, the rest of Europe was being destroyed with record floods.

It's not that bad weather has not happened before - nobody is saying that, it's the intensity and frquency of it that's alarming. Records are being broken across the world every year in the past 15-20 years.

dlofnep

Call Me Jimmy wrote:

That's what I think, the earth has been here long before us and it has had an ice age without our intervention. We are basing our weather peaks on the last 200 years or so. The earth has been here billions of years and I'm sure it has had higher peaks in that time.

And also, global warming happening that fast? We get a couple of hot summers and it's here?

Wrong, we're basing it on a 800,000 year collection of data in the ice caps (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm). Not just 200 years. Carbon Dioxide levels have been higher now than they ever were in the past 800,000 years.. The rise of temperature goes side by side with the rise of carbon dioxide. It's not a natural cycle, it's a man-made problem.

Binomate

Global Warming my ass. I'm cold.

McSandwich

Alessandra wrote:

Did these Hurricanes and famines and extremes of weather only start happening recently? I think not. Weather is by its' very nature extreme. Its like people saying society is gone to hell these days, when in fact people have always been bad/good. Weather is either bad/good. Natural disasters relaing to weather have always ocurred and will continue to occur, it's not a new phenomena. I refuse to believe this hype!

You might be right but I'd hate to think I did nothing if it turns out to be true (and the evidence certainly points to that)

It's a fact that world oil and gas reserves are dwindling. If we want plastic and other oil based products in the future, then we need to conserve it and use alternative energy sources - regardless of what you think about global warming (which they would help reduce). Think of your grandchildren and what they might think

Mahatma coat

Blame/Thank the Chinese for this slightly warmer weather

http://english.people.com.cn/200302/08/eng20030208_111325.shtml

basicly the unchecked coalfires in the Northern provinces put out more Greenhouse Gasses than All of Australia.

it might be mildly amusing for ye to have warmer summers etc, but spare a thought for those of us livin on the dryest continent on earth, things can only get worse

thebaz

some people will always bury there head in the sand , and believe the oil company and right wing governments propaganda -- the temperatures in Eastern and Central Europe are scary , if you think there is nothing unusual about our climate -- i don't like rain and high heating bills-- but no frost , rain, and sharp cold weather ain't good for the environment -- what will it be like in 20 years -- i kind of thought initially global warning was leftish/green propaganda -- but what were experiencing now doesn't seam natural to me.

ninebeanrows

In 3 days time you'll all be wishing GW back.. this summer spell is coming to an end.. for how long? i dont know.

zuutroy

dlofnep wrote:

The rise of temperature goes side by side with the rise of carbon dioxide.

Yes, but which drives which. Hotter weather due to non man-made causes warms the sea which releases a shed load more CO2 than we produce. Human industry is responsible for less than 1% of CO2 which is in turn makes up 1% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere

_blank_

I love this new warmer weather.

In fact, I've been using twice as much deodarant, both because I'm sweating more, and to intensify global warming.

Walk down Grafton Street in Dublin in the Sun, it's brilliant.

brianthebard

dlofnep wrote:

Yes, infact they did just start happening recently.

2005 had the most hurricanes and storms in recorded history (reference: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/hurricanes05.html)

And while the US was being bombarded with Hurricanes, the rest of Europe was being destroyed with record floods.

It's not that bad weather has not happened before - nobody is saying that, it's the intensity and frquency of it that's alarming. Records are being broken across the world every year in the past 15-20 years.

As has been pointed out, these things are cyclical. The US was "bombarded" with hurricanes in the 70's too, and its not like there haven't been floods in Europe before.

AlmightyCushion

wes wrote:

Global warming is undeniable at this point......

While the OP's post is based on personal observations, it doesn't negate all the science that show global warming to be a reality. We are the cause and if we don't shape up, the s*** will hit the fan.

There is no undeniable proof that man is responsible for global warming. There are many theories about this and the scientific community is divided on what the cause is.
Some scientists believe man is responsible, others believe that the earth goes through cycles of heating up and cooling down, some others believe that it is to do with sun spots on the sun and I'm sure there are many more. Each of these theories have some proof to back them up but not enough to make it fact. I'll leave you with this. A single volcanic eruption spews out more cabon dioxide than man does in a whole year.

zuutroy

And also, the experts are far from sure that Ireland will even experience any warming. Several models predict severe cooling for Ireland. The weather has been amazing though. I literally haven't seen a cloud in 3 weeks and its been 25 every day here in Belgium.

Salthillwarrior

If we are talking about anecdotal evidence of global warming then what about when it snowed a month back for a few days? How does that fit into your 'This must be global warming because its warm today' theory?

Global warming and cooling is always happening. People seem to think that they have the right to live in some sort of everlasting, stationary planet where everything stays the same. Well it doesnt. The planet is constantly changing, wheather is constantly changing. Ireland used ot be a volcanic wasteland a thousands of degrees warmer. At times it was part of a massive glacier. The longer trend is for the planet to cool until the suns burns itself out. Have humans had an impact in a short term change? Probaly not. If they have then there is nothing we can do to change it. All we can do is adapt like we always have and look to the near future, a warmer, dryer Ireland. Hurrah!

McSandwich

zuutroy wrote:

And also, the experts are far from sure that Ireland will even experience any warming. Several models predict severe cooling for Ireland. The weather has been amazing though. I literally haven't seen a cloud in 3 weeks and its been 25 every day here in Belgium.

There's a theory that ocean warming could cause the gulf stream to shutdown leaving us with a climate similar to Newfoundland

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9986

and the other side:

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20505

ScumLord

The current levels have never been seen on earth in nearly a million years, and that's only because that's how far back the records go which are stored in the lower ice in the ice caps.

How can you possibly believe that's true. It was much hotter in the middle ages than it is now, it's only beginning to come back up to those temperatures now. They had vineyards in the south of England during the middle ages.

Maybe Dublin didn't get a frost (I wouldn't have thought a city would anyway) during the winter but we certainly did in the west. It didn't stop frosting at night up until recently even during the good weather.

We have little or no control over what the weather does, we may be contributing more CO2 to the atmosphere than before but it's still a tiny amount. The sun "controls" completely the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Channel 4 did a documentary on the great global warming swindle, when I heard about it I thought it was oil propaganda but they explained themselves well and it all made sense.

There is actually no proof that CO2 causes temperatures to rise, it works the other way around, when temperature raises the CO2 level goes up. When the sun gets active it warms the oceans which release CO2 (which can take 100s of years) Al Gores film showed this effect by the study of ice caps but lied about the data and didn't mention that the temperature went up, then 800 years later the CO2 went up. To think that we can affect the global temperature in less than 100 more so than the SUN! and OCEANS! can do in 800 years is just stupid.

Global warming has become a political issue and has no basis in fact anymore, we're ignoring real pollution like expanding cities, human waste and industrial farming.

Enjoy the weather for Gods sake we may never see it again.

spooiirt!!

Global Warming is an imminent threat!

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Please purchase our Hybrids!

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Global Warming is going to kill you!

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Please encourage you Politicians to purchase our Wind, Solar, and Hydro electric technology.

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Seriously though, everyone assumes that any denial of the effect of co2 increase is organised by Oil Companies. But theres a serious amount of cash to be made with renewable energy.

Binomate

It has political value as well. Look at when the theory of Global Warming came out. Roughly the same time as the Berlin Wall fell. It might be just another front for Governments to use scare tactics on the public for various reasons. Just another thing to be afraid of.



I only heard the above from a mate of mine who doesn't fully buy in to Global Warming., I don't know it's correct in any way, but it's not a bad point.

Dyr

I, for one, welcome our insect overlords

weeder

to the guy who said global warming contributed to only 1% by man could you please cite a source for this as it would be an interesting read, my brother thinks the politicians are playing it down and 10 years will see ireland as hot as spain,so i googled and got some scientists predicting 3 degree's in ten years , personally reading this thread ive decided its only a cycle of the earth which we cannot change and personally i believe whatever mother earth throws at us man will survive it, after all they did survive the last ice age didnt they

zuutroy

weeder wrote:

to the guy who said global warming contributed to only 1% by man could you please cite a source for this as it would be an interesting read

If you mean me, I said that <1% of the Greenhouse effect was caused by man, not less than 1% of GW.
Here's one of many links:

http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

weeder

yeah sorry thats what i meant >.<

cooperguy

People keep going back to the fact that the earth goes through warming and cooling cycles so its just a natural thing. Everybody seems to be ignoring the fact that these cycles take hundreds of years and the "cycle" we're in at the moment has raised the temperature significantly in just 100 to 200 years. If this is a natural cycle it sure is picking up speed compared to previous cycles.

Also people are saying there are a large number of conflicting thoeries and there are as much scientists backing up these theories as knocking them. This may have been true 5 years ago but today a large majority of scientists are behind the greenhouse gasses/global warming theory.

Anyway at the end of the day even if it is natural and everybody will be grand its always a good thing to move to renewable energy etc. the way we currently power our world is bad for our health, expensive and cant last forever anyway because they are limited resources.

ScumLord

Here's the doco on youtube,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXc9H5JSyow

Heres the wikipedia page,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle

McSandwich

Binomate wrote:

It has political value as well. Look at when the theory of Global Warming came out. Roughly the same time as the Berlin Wall fell. It might be just another front for Governments to use scare tactics on the public for various reasons. Just another thing to be afraid of.



I only heard the above from a mate of mine who doesn't fully buy in to Global Warming., I don't know it's correct in any way, but it's not a bad point.

Why then are politicians playing down the effects of global warming?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/01/news/warm.php

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19425993.000-editorial-nowhere-to-turn-for-climate-change-deniers.html

L31mr0d

nobodies really touched on it but, regardless of whether or not this is a natural earth cycle or the result of mans impact on the environment the earth is globally warming... thus "global warming" is happening. You can argue until the cows come home about which theory is right, it still doesn't change the fact that the icecaps are melting, the seasons are getting shorter and that our generation is going to see the Arctic disappear. Regardless of the cause, the effect is happening now.

Also regardless of whether it will have an effect or not, we should all be investing in renewable energy. If not, you are going to start to see more and more nuclear power plants popping up all over the world as the substitute. The less reasons governments have to invest in nuclear energy as the solution the better