Blame blistering heat waves on global warming, study says

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: NBC News

The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

The research by a man often called the "godfather of global warming" says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are closer to 1 in 10, according to the study by NASA scientist James Hansen. He says that statistically what's happening is not random or normal, but pure and simple climate change.

"This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Hansen told The Associated Press in an interview.

Hansen is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. He has called for government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change skeptics.

Read more: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/05/13129330-blame-blistering-heat-waves-on-global-warming-study-says?lite

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Damn lying scientists, with their "studies" and "statistical analysis".

[SleeplessinSoCal]

1. Time for lie detector tests. See who passes.

[BlueStreak]

2. Seeking a Pulitzer, US News ...

went to Herculean efforts, scouring the countryside in search of a reputable scientist who would fulfill the modern MSM mandate of always presenting the opposite view with equal time and respect, regardless of how outrageous the proposition is or how deranged or unqualified the "expert" might be.

Finding none, they went with a bit of nonsense from John Christy of the University of Alabama, allowing them to fulfill their mandate. "See we are truly fair and balanced", the editor of US News crowed. "We balance everything. We can balance truth with nonsense all day long. If the Pulitzer committee needs to reach me, here is my cell phone ..."

[Pale Blue Dot]

3. True Facebook exchange I had after posting this article:

My "friend" is a mortician and therefore uses science and scientific principles daily.

My "friend": Oh, it's global warming again? Well, it is August. I guess when January descends upon us it will be climate change again. Long time liberal scientist James Hansen does a "statistical study" and makes a conclusion that fits his political beliefs? You can be sure I'll put all my eggs in his basket!

My response: LOL. I guess a scientific theory with almost unanimous scientific support, which makes predictions about current and future weather which are proving to be accurate, is not enough for you. Why is that? You value science when it helps you do your job, but when it violates (for some strange reason) your ideology, you reject it out of hand in favor of a fringe theory that even the Koch Brothers own scientists don't support anymore.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/richard-muller-koch-brothers-funded-scientist-declares-global-warming-real-article-1.969870

[Amonester]

6. I would add: The day you and your loved ones won't find anything to eat for a week...

or more.... or curse the price of what little is left on the shelves, don't you ever come complaining about it because, once there, it will be way too late to make a 180.

Of course it would do squat to register, but I would add it anyway.

[Demeter]

4. The Dust Bowl Was 10 Years of Drought

and no one has claimed it to be global warming.

[Pale Blue Dot]

5. The Dust Bowl, while being long and devastating,

was an isolated extreme weather event, one that is relatively common in earth's history. This year's heat wave is simply the latest in an unprecedented series of extreme weather events; the current theory of man-made global warming actually predicts that extreme weather events will become steadily more frequent and more severe.

The whole point of the science, and scientists will tell you this, is that you can't take one event as evidence of anything. You have to look at the preponderance of evidence over time. When a theory has predictive power, as the theory of man-made global warming does, and those predictions start coming true, that becomes increasingly good evidence that the theory is correct.

[TiberiusB]

7. As though the science of the 1930's was even remotely up to the task

First, the Dust Bowl wasn't a global phenomenon, which GLOBAL Warming definitely is.

Second, it, too, was largely man-made. While an extensive drought did play a large part in turning the plains to dust, an equally large part was played by farmers who over cultivated the land and didn't use proper crop rotation to preserve the topsoil. Thus the existing, deep rooted grasses and other plant life were up plowed under for fast turn over crops, leaving nothing to hold the denuded topsoil in place. High winds stripped away the soil, along with any moisture, leaving only sand and dust.

Would there have been a Dust Bowl without the over farming? Maybe, but there is no doubt that the farmers of the 1930's did nothing to help their situation and plenty to hurt it (and so did the government, which encouraged them).

[JDPriestly]

8. You are right, TiberiusB.

I have family members who lived through the Oklahoma Dust Bowl. Much of it was man-made.

[yardwork]

10. The Dust Bowl was recognized as a man-made disaster at the time, and in the years that followed.

Agricultural practices in the U.S. changed as a result of the Dust Bowl. I was taught about this in the 1960s in Ohio. Many of my teachers were farmers. They explained how people had plowed the earth the wrong way and erosion destroyed the soil, and how people began using different plowing techniques as a result.

[NickB79]

13. They also planted 220 million trees along 18,000 miles of land

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

Unfortunately, in our great "wisdom" we've failed to maintain them and have even been cutting them down to expand fields as the trees age and die.

[NickB79]

12. +1000. I love it when people compare manmade global warming to the Dust Bowl

Without realizing the Dust Bowl was caused in large part because of man's impact on the land.

Farmers would actually plow the land after every rainstorm, under the theory that turning over the soil would "lock in" the newly fallen moisture. Instead, what they were doing was constantly exposing loose, dark soil to the sun and wind. The dark surface dried out and heated up rapidly, creating a "heat bubble" over the Great Plains that explains why so many record high temperatures were recorded during this period.

[yardwork]

9. My state (NC) just made it illegal to use scientific evidence like this to make decisions.

Seriously. It's now against the law in North Carolina to use climate change evidence to make decisions about building on the coast, etc. We have to use older, outmoded analyses.

This is the Republican way. If you don't like the facts, make them illegal.

[tclambert]

11. Sen. Inhofe of Oklahoma STILL wearing a parka and muttering, "Al Gore. Hoax. That's what it is."

Who knew what lengths Al Gore would go to? Whoops, Sen. Inhofe just passed out again. Somebody get an ice pack for him.

[DJFrey]

14. Only the ideologically blind do not see.

Grab some facts and decide for yourself.

http://napoleonlive.info/what-i-think/global-warming-is-here/

[sarcasmo]

15. It's only going to get worse.

I'M really shocked we didn't have a major blackout this summer.

[KurtNYC]

16. The next real estate boom: Canada and Iceland

[Uncle Joe]

17. The corporate media is the "Godfather of global warming" Hansen is Paul Revere.

The corporate media as an institution have done everything in their power to deny, obfuscate or hide the message.

Obviously the corporate media wants global warming to occur, in general as an institution they support the realization of global warming every bit as much as the "Godfather" supported organized crime.

Just yesterday I made the mistake of wasting my money and buying a Tennessean News Paper, they buried this critical story in the inner pages with just a small blurb from the AP using the word "but" to denigrate Hansen's standing and thus his message.

Paraphrasing here, I already trashed the paper, but it went something like 'Hansen is respected by other scientists but he's also a climate change activist'.

Sort of like reporting Einstein was a genius "but" he was a Jew, "but" he was a German, "but" he believed in the Theory of Relativity.

One word to slam the messager they could have used the word "and" to make the same point, but whoever wrote and edited that for the AP obviously was more intent on subtly casting doubt on the messenger's integrity but they didn't have the guts to present a logical argument in doing so.

Thanks for the thread, Pale Blue Dot.