Since it’s an international forum, I thought I ask a question to all members.
I’m no activist, just curious.
Over here, it’s a never seen winter, less than a foot of snow, all the snowmobiles are idle, it’s 3 degrees and it rains ! last year we had 8 feet of snow at this time.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Havre-St-Pierre,+Minganie--Basse-Côte-Nord,+Quebec&sll=-23.591196,-46.684645&sspn=0.015849,0.016544&ie=UTF8&cd=2&geocode=FRen_gIdJ341_A&split=0&hq=&hnear=Havre-St-Pierre,+Quebec&ll=50.240179,-63.599854&spn=5.664407,8.470459&z=7
How’s the weather in your neighborhood ?
Did you see a noticable change lately?
Where i come from their is a sever drought and heat wave in south to eastern part of the country while the northern provinces have experienced some flooding.
Weather is variable and ever changing. There are other countries experiencing record snow falls.
Here in Australia most of the country has experienced for the better part a decade long drought. The weather bureau’s climate indicators a month ago suggested the drought would continue with BELOW average rainfall for much of the country.
And in the last three weeks? Every state except western Australia has experinced record breaking rainfall, in some cases the heaviest rainfall in one hundred years.
I’ll ask this question. How can anyone predict what the weather will be like in one hundred years?
digger
Here in Germany we’re enjoying the coldest winter since God knows when.
Meanwhile road salt is rare as gold and people are hoarding regular table salt like crazy. As I write this it started snowing again and I’m looking forward to another slide to work soon…
Relatives in England say this winter is the coldest they’ve experienced and from some of the videos I’ve seen I wouldn’t disagree.
digger
And the carry-on about the Murray-Darling tends to overlook the fact that those rivers were worse a century or so ago, notably in 1914 when people could walk along the Murray river bed http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/droughthistory.html. And this happened without the fucking rice and cotton farms that infest the Murray-Darling now and suck out water that wasn’t being sucked out a century ago, so is this drought worse when there is still water in the system after the irrigators take it out?
Which proves sweet FA, either way.
Which proves sweet FA, either way.
Ah, now we’re getting nearer the central issue.
How long have rainfall records been maintained reliably in Australia?
Not before 1778, as the Aborigines didn’t have (a) rain gauges and (b) writing and (c) written records.
In the case of my city, Melbourne, not before about the middle of the 19th century as it wasn’t settled by Europeans with rain recording interests until then. Those records don’t represent the blink of an eye in climatic or geological time, yet there have been several periods of severe drought even in that time.
I don’t know whether climate change and global warming, or cooling, are real or not. But common sense tells me we can’t keep spewing pollutants into the atmosphere and the oceans with no consequences. So I think it’s a good idea to reduce them.
But equally I think the relatively minor changes we are said to be experiencing fall well within the much greater changes this planet has undergone over millions of years and long before humans had any impact on it, so I have no idea to what extent any climate change is attributable to human activity or to other factors.
Still, better safe than sorry, so I’m in favour of sensible steps to reduce pollution in all its forms.
It’s just that governments which are carrying on about climate change don’t seem to be in favour of sensible steps. Like that would be a first!
Here, our government has a brilliant carbon credits scheme which, as far as I can see, creates a new market for trading carbon credits between emitters and does sweet FA to reduce the total emissions as the market is based on the current total emissions.
The other side of politics has an equally crazy scheme which is supposed to be better, purely because it’s different and it’s their own idea.
I, however, have a cunning plan. It involves significantly reducing total emissions of all known harmful things. This is a silly idea, because nobody can profit from it or because countries which profit from current emissions ain’t gonna reduce theirs.
So, alas, if climate change is real, we’re fucked!
Thanks all, very Interesting.
from what I understand (and it might have already changed, as the knowledge base is getting more accurate),
Climate change is not constant, it’s the variation and extreme changes that is more common.
The cold wave in Europe would give credit to the theory that the gulf stream which regulate atlantic water temperature is shifting, slowing down, until it stops completely. This has to do with the water on top of the ocean heating a few degrees. I see this here already. Usually the water here is constant 4 degrees all year round, but in the last 2 years we have seen water up to 7 degrees, which is rather unusual
One of the central predictions of climate change is that we will see an increase in the extremes of extreme weather events and a greater frequency of such events.
Australia has had little respite from drought in the last 3 decades, and the current one has lasted longer than a decade.
We have also seen on increase in the frequency, size and ferocity of bush-fires. I lead a volunteer fire unit, and have contacts with climate and fire science folk. We have had to add two extra levels on top of the international Fire Danger Index, above Severe. I believe California is considering adopting them.
Here in the SE we have also seen an increase in the frequency of ferocious storms and heavy intense downpours and an increase in snow storms well away from the Australian Alps, all in the last three decades.
Australia already had a climate of extremes.
There has also been an increase in the number of record rain events in and outside the SE third of the country - as someone else has noted - but that person failed to note that total rainfall has been falling for some time.
Make up your own minds. The science may be wrong and may not have enough years of data, but it sure doesn’t look good, IMO.
I might add that a small survey of what’s the weather like where you are, is unlikely to prove or disprove the argument.
Thanks for your input, as mentioned in the first post, this is pure curiosity on my behalf, inspired by a snowless winter up here in the north.
No snow in skidooland is a sad sight…