What's going on with the Earth?

What's happening with this global warming. I live in New York where normal temperatures this time of year is below freezing and it's snowing like crazy and this Sunday the temperature was at 75 degrees fahrenheit. It usually snows at least by November and so far we've seen no snow and it seems like it's going to stay that way. Are the seasons going to change?? Will it be snowing in June and warm in December?? What effect does this have on people?? Will the ice at the poles freeze and flood the continents?? I've heard so far that 2007 is estimated to be the warmest year yet. What do you have to say about global warming?

What's going on with the Earth?
Its debatable whether humans are influencing global warming. Every 11,500 years, the earth goes through a major extinction with a global warming and cooling phase (ice age.) Paleontologists are able to track this through soil samples. We may actually be headed into an ice age because we are coming to the tail end of the current cycle. The problem is that the media and politicians get focussed on a piece of the puzzle and try to simplify this issue. Don't be fooled. There is probably nothing humans can do. Even if we could, there is no way you can control China who is becoming a major world polluter. Humans will need to adapt to climate change. Where I live there are small changes in our weather pattern, but nothing major. A lot of the media is hype to sell newspapers. The only caution is that some past climate changes have been more radical, swinging wildly from hot to cold. Others have brought on instant and severe cold conditions. I know the area that I live used to be buried in hundreds on feet of ice, but temperatures are mild today... Humans will just need to wait and see what mother nature brings and adapt as necessary.
Reply:Scientists do not all agree about the nature and impact of global warming. A few observers still question whether temperatures have actually been rising at all. Others acknowledge past change but argue that it is much too early to be making predictions for the future. Such critics may also deny that the evidence for the human contribution to warming is conclusive, arguing that a purely natural cycle may be driving temperatures upward. The same dissenters tend to emphasize the fact that continued warming could have benefits in some regions.





Scientists who question the global warming trend point to three puzzling differences between the predictions of the global warming models and the actual behavior of the climate. First, the warming trend stopped for three decades in the middle of the 20th century; there was even some cooling before the climb resumed in the 1970s. Second, the total amount of warming during the 20th century was only about half what computer models predicted. Third, the troposphere, the lower region of the atmosphere, did not warm as fast as the models forecast. However, global warming proponents believe that two of the three discrepancies have now been explained.





The lack of warming at midcentury is now attributed largely to air pollution that spews particulate matter, especially sulfates, into the upper atmosphere. These particulates, also known as aerosols, reflect some incoming sunlight out into space. Continued warming has now overcome this effect, in part because pollution control efforts have made the air cleaner.





The unexpectedly small amount of total warming since 1900 is now attributed to the oceans absorbing vast amounts of the extra heat. Scientists long suspected that this was happening but lacked the data to prove it. In 2000 the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) offered a new analysis of water temperature readings made by observers around the world over 50 years. Records showed a distinct warming trend: World ocean temperatures in 1998 were higher than the 50-year average by 0.2 Celsius degree (0.3 Fahrenheit degree), a small but very significant amount.





The third discrepancy is the most puzzling. Satellites detect less warming in the troposphere than the computer models of global climate predict. According to some critics, the atmospheric readings are right, and the higher temperatures recorded at Earth’s surface are not to be trusted. In January 2000 a panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to weigh this argument reaffirmed that surface warming could not be doubted. However, the lower-than-predicted troposphere measurements have not been entirely explained.
Reply:In this particular case, it's just a quirk. Don't forget, while you're basking in all that warmth, the midwest is getting hammered by record blizzards.





Global warming is too vast an effect to be verified by temperature variations in New York alone. Indicators for Global Warming are:





1. Average temperature of the Earth


2. Duration of El Nino, the big heat battery in the Pacific Ocean


3. The amount of Arctic Ice vs. open water.


4. Thickness of the Greenland Ice Sheet


5. Thickness of the Antarctic Ice Sheets and dense packed snow.





....and many others. Compared to those measurements, variations of temperature in a tiny little place like NYC are insignificant. So is a week-long cold spell in Siberia that freezes a dozen people, contrary to Rush Limbaugh's claim that this proves Global Warming is not happening. He used what is known as "junk science" to reach that conclusion.





Big Al Mintaka
Reply:To begin with, NY occasionally has late winters. Trust me , it's on its way. The pole cannot freeze and still flood the continents. Actually the north pole is thawing. It will not raise the sea levels because ice displaces the same amount of water. Greenland is the greenhouse terror. 1800ft of ice thawing faster than it falls, putting fresh water into an undersea canyon that is rapidly filling up. It is of concern that the fresh water will act as a wall and stop the North Atlantic circulation. Which means western Europe and the north Atlantic will get very cold while the equatorial waters will get real hot. Then all kinds of nasty things begin to happen.
Reply:I addition to the very well made staements about global warming is the fact that methane from the seas cannot be accounted for as far as effect on the climate even though methane is theoretically a far better greenhouse gas than the vilified CO2. And that the computer models actually predict a massive increase in antarctic ice build up before that cap actually melts.





The reason for the ice build up would be increased snowfall as a result of more free water available. However, the ice layer is thinning which is more likely to be the result of some other unexplained shift. The discrepency does point to a severe problem with the models though, making any conclusions based on those models unrelaible at best and pure fantasy at worst.





The second poster mentions a concept called global dimming which is currently being studied by a large group of scientists from Duke University. They have a well founded concern that too much sunlight is still being reflected away from the earth and that massive cooling could soon result.





That biggest issue though is temperature records. Accurate records have only been kept a few years and are not even now universal on land and barely scratch the surface of the ocean temperatures. While we can readily get the gist of broad sweeps of climate change over thousands of years, our 50 years of limited in scope but reliable record keeping is wholly inadaquite to make judgments on. On a system as large as the earth with as much momentum in the form of stored energy, fifty years is a tiny flicker of time. Determining that we have caused a catastrophe and drastically altering our entire civilization to stop something we do not know is even occuring seems a rather large waste of time.





I am not saying that the climate isn't changing, it is in a perpetual state of change. I am not saying that we should be polluting our home either. It's horrible some of the things we have done. I am saying that we do not know if the climate fluctuation we have seen is caused by man or is even more than a slight statistical fluctuation. We simply do not have the data to know that.





The global warming crowd is advocating major, expensive changes in our civilization. It will pull money out of circulation and if global warming is real it might be well spent. However, if it is not real that money will come from each and every person on this planet eventually in the form of higher food prices and lower wages in relation to what we have today. While that will not hurt most people, it will push millions from barely surviving into starvation. If global warming is not real, is that something you want to be responsible for? All I am telling you is that we have to get the politics and the sensationalist media out of it, put people who will work honestly towards answers using real science on the question. I want honest answers, not political crap and that's all we are getting today.