Bad weather

I have been monitoring www.weather.com to keep up with the Hurricanes and noticed an interesting story.

As it turns out, not only is this a bad year for Hurricanes but a record year for tornadoes as well.

For the first five months there were over 900 tornadoes, and the old record was 788.

So not only was it a record year, it was well above the old record.

I do not buy into the fundamentalist preachers' theory that God is punishing us for being too tolerant or liberal in our political views.

I believe if He was punishing us he would tell us why instead of making us guess.

But I suspect there might be a scientific explanation for this bad weather phenomenon.

The first thing that comes to mind is this global warming we are experiencing.

I really don't want to get into a political argument about whether global warming is real, since I see it as a scientific question and not a political question.

So just for the sake of argument let's take it as a given that global warming is real ok.

Assuming global warming is real, could that help explain the extraordinary number of bad weather outbreaks like tornadoes, hurricanes, out of the ordinary rainfall, etc.

How could global warming result in more violent weather?

And, if not global warming, what other natural (or manmade) circumstances could be responsible.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html

This link from a group called "concerned scientists" gives a pretty good argument for the global warming theory.

Just for the curious:

Hurricanes in the northern hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise.

In the southern hemisphere they rotate clockwise.

So what happens when a hurricane crosses the equator in either direction?

I do not doubt that global warming occurs, and has been occuring over recent decades- year to year ups and downs of global temperatures notwithstanding.

The climatological history of the earth that we can discern is replete with evidences of multiple warming-cooling cycles- and of varying lengths. These cycles are in the order of from a few hundred years to tens of thousands and millions of years cycles. The most recent tens of thousand of years cycle of hemispheric ice ages followed by warming, and with several lengths of cooling and warming cycles within the larger ice age cycle, is on the order of about 28,000 to 50,000 years. We are now about 10,000 to 12,000 years removed from the peak on the most recent multi millennia ice age- the one that most recently shaped the surface topography of the northern Appalachian Mountains- including northern West Virginia- for example.

Within those ice ages (or at least within the last one), more temperate and more severe periods occur. The colder periods are called glacial periods, the warmer periods interglacials, such as the Eemian interglacial era.

I do not consider Wikipedia as the last word in climatologically data. But for a layman not trained in climatology it is one place to start.

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

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

While I understand the theories of human induced greenhouse gas warming, I am not convinced that it is the eminent catastrophic event some are predicting.

On the other hand, when the amount of carbon that has been sequestered over the course of 100 million years or so is released in only a couple centuries, one could rationally ask and seek answers to the question about what are the short and long term effects of all this release of carbon into the atmosphere

Well zig maybe I did not communicate well.

I made no contention that global warming had a specific cause.

Because I knew that would turn it into a partisan political discussion.

But the fact that global warming exists should not be political.

It is scientific fact.

So the question was whether global warming affects weather patterns.

Not what caused the warming in the first place.

So the question was whether global warming affects weather patterns.

Yes, I believe that it does.

I would have checked answers 1, 2 and 4 to your poll. But since the poll does not allow multiple answers, I did not check anything. A single check would indicate exclusiveness, and I don't think it's "one size (answer) fits all".

"I would have checked answers 1, 2 and 4 to your poll. But since the poll does not allow multiple answers, I did not check anything. A single check would indicate exclusiveness, and I don't think it's "one size (answer) fits all".

Well zig are you sure?

(because I checked the option of allowing multiple answers just for that reason.)

In this case I agree multiple answers apply.

I was wrong, Sodbuster.

The poll does allow multiple answers. And I voted accordingly.

sodbuster wrote:Well zig maybe I did not communicate well.

I made no contention that global warming had a specific cause.

Because I knew that would turn it into a partisan political discussion.

But the fact that global warming exists should not be political.

Well now rototiller, ........ what was the purpose of your "poll" that initiated this thread? Are you pushing a political agenda ....... or interested in learning scientific facts?

These poll questions of yours, …… to wit:

1. Global warming (please explain how)

2. Pure chance or happenstance.

3. Divine retribution.

4. Natural extra-terrestrial influence, i.e. sunspots, asteroids, orbital variations, gamma rays, etc.

Lead me to believe that you know one hell of a lot more about the Science of GW than you have "fessed up to" on this Forum.

Maybe you should explain your charade to myself and the other posters.

sodbuster wrote:It is scientific fact.

HELL YES, ...... global warming is scientific fact. The earth has been in a warming cycle since the early 1800's. If said warming had started a few years earlier ......... Napolean wouldn't have frozen his ass off when he invaded Russia and 800,000+- of his soldiers would not have frozen to death.

But it is not a scientific fact that all said "global warming" is a DIRECT RESULT of "human caused global warming".

sodbuster, you might as well be attempting to "piss up a rope" as to be making such asinine claims that it is.

Now rototiller, the current "global warming"has been exacerbated slightly due to all the "human caused heat islands" that have been been constructed by humans during the past 100+ years.

GEEEEZE, big boy, ....... didn't you know it is always hotter in the city?

sodbuster wrote:So the question was whether global warming affects weather patterns.

GEEEEZUS, man, hurricanes do not form in the northern hemisphere in the winter months, ..... now do they?

Hey sodbuster, why don't you check which way the water swirls when you drain it out of your kitchen sink. Then call someone in Brazil and compare observations.

And ps, put a pot of cold water on your stove and "light a fire under it" ....... and then check ever so often to see if that affects your "pot warming".

sodbuster wrote:Not what caused the warming in the first place.

GEEEZUS, don't you have any frigging idea at all as to what is "causing the warming in the first place"?

Lettme give you a clue, big boy, ....... the "cause of warming" is directly related to the amount of Solar energy that strikes the earth in a given period of time.

But you already knew that, ........ didn't ya big boy. To wit:

4. Natural extra-terrestrial influence, i.e. sunspots, orbital variations, gamma rays, etc.

.

Welcome back Sammy.