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from the Meanwhile-Carnarvon-Airport-(Australia)-Reached-113.7°F-(45.4°C) dept.
Extreme Cold Weather Grips U.S., Dispelling Doubts About Climate Change
A poll released Tuesday showed that more people are starting to believe climate change is credible, partly due to the frigid weather which has gripped the United States.
The poll released by Associated Press showed that 48 percent of respondents found the science of human-induced climate change more convincing when the poll was taken in November 2018 than they did five years ago, compared to 14 percent who thought it less convincing.
Eighty-three percent of those polled who believe in climate change want the federal government to take actions to mitigate it, and 80 percent want their state governments to act, the survey found.
More people than expected supported a carbon tax to help curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the survey.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/23/c_137768179.htm
Prolonged, Life-Threatening Cold to Grip Midwestern US This Week as Polar Vortex Plunges South
The coldest weather in years will put millions of people and animals throughout the midwestern United States at risk for frostbite to occur in minutes and hypothermia during the final days of January.
The deep freeze continued across the Upper Midwest on Sunday with temperatures plummeting well below zero in the morning. The low of 45 below zero F [-43°C] in International Falls, Minnesota, shattered the day's record of 36 below zero F [-38°C] from 1966.
As harsh as Sunday morning was, the worst is yet to come as the polar vortex gets displaced from the Arctic Circle and dives into the Midwest in the wake of the disruptive snowstorm starting this week.
https://news.yahoo.com/prolonged-life-threatening-cold-grip-165320957.html
Climate Change Cooks up Ideal Conditions for Snow
Look at all that snow in the Alps; has global warming taken a break? Alas, no, it turns out that the recent record-breaking dumps of snow across much of southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria are more likely a consequence of global warming. Why? Balmy temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are cooking up the ideal conditions to create snow.
[...]
Global warming enhances the current snowfall … Anomalously high sea surface temperatures in the North Sea and Baltic are loading winds from the north with moisture,” tweeted Stefan Rahmstorf of the University of Potsdam last week.
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(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:47AM (3 children)
Stealing this from a friend: If weather is a function f(x), climate is the integral of f(x) over the time domain. Even if we're not sure what the value of f(x) will be at any given point on the time axis in the future, we can look at present and past data and see the integral of f(x) from arbitrarily-chosen T1 to T2 and see what the concurrent conditions were like and how they changed over time. Weather and climate forecasting themselves both also involve heavy use of systems of partial differential equations.
The climate system as a whole can be very (very, very...) oversimplified into a damped harmonic oscillator; think "spring with a weight on it." The Earth is not a barren, featureless, uniform, ball of rock. If it were, we *would* see literal global warming, all over, with all parameters except radiative forcing via CO2 increase held constant.
Instead, what we have is a hugely complex interplay of phase changes, energy movement, sources and sinks (storms mostly), exchange between mediums with differing heat capacities, volumes, etc., and so on. Over time, all these elements form a cohesive and more or less stable equilibrium and, here's the key, *damp down changes* somewhat. This is called negative feedback, and is exactly analagous to the idea of a buffer solution in chemistry; indeed, one of these mechanisms IS a buffer, a double buffer at that, that being the carbonate-bicarbonate-CO2 equilibrium of the oceans.
The key takeaway here is this: like the spring with a weight, you can pull the weight and watch the spring recoil and bounce, slower and slower, until it returns to equilibrium. But pull the weight too hard, or keep tugging on it just a tiny bit every time it reaches its nadir, and eventually, *the spring breaks.* The negative feedback mechanisms are overwhelmed. The system fails chaotically. A new equilibrium is eventually established, but it need not have any regulation built in; the weight is no longer there, the spring is broken beyond repair, just hanging there mangled and twisted.
We depend on that weight, on that regular bouncing, on the smooth, regular structure of the spring. Snap it, and we'll end up a burning, crushing Hell like Venus.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @07:14AM
As the other AC said to EETech1. (Bolding added.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @03:23PM (1 child)
Here is the negative feedback: When the temperature of the oceans increases, more water evaporates. This evaporated water forms clouds. The clouds reflect more sunlight. Even a tiny increase in overall albedo will counteract a 1% change in CO2, especially if this occurs near the equator or over a dark surface (middle of the pacific).
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 29 2019, @10:14PM
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and if the clouds are higher in the atmosphere, they contribute more to warming than cooling. That was poorly-researched; try again.
Bonus round: get enough vapor high enough into the air and it photodissociates into hydrogen and oxygen. This is how a planet too close in to its parent star loses any water it may have once had.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...