It’s about 50°F warmer than normal near the North Pole again

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/02/10/its-about-50-degrees-warmer-than-normal-near-the-north-pole/?utm_term=.65377b890ed3

by ramonvillasante • 9 years ago

116 67 9 years ago

washingtonpost.com

Daishiman• 9 years ago

So what's the excuse from the denialists today about why we shouldn't worry?

slededit2• 9 years ago

Just as cold weather in the winter doesn't disprove global warming. A warm day at the North pole doesn't prove it either. Weather != Climate.

freehunter• 9 years ago

A single cold day doesn't disprove global warming. An entire winter worth of cold days kind of does.

Likewise, a single day of warmth doesn't prove global warming. An entire winter of warm days does.

"Extreme temperature spikes such as this one have occurred multiple times in the past two winters, whereas they only previously occurred once or twice per decade in historical records"

It sounds like this is becoming a trend, which is what is worrisome.

sgt1015• 9 years ago

Ok, but if your neighbour comes to your door covered with blood, toting an axe and wittering about his dead wife nothing is proved either.

The guy is a stand up fella, real family man, pillar of the church.

Do you open the door, hug him and invite him in?

Oletros4• 9 years ago

The problem is that it is not just a warm day

http://ak-wx.blogspot.com.es/2017/02/arctic-update.html

yessql2• 9 years ago

What fancy computer model predicted this?

If they can't predict this, climate science must be wrong.

Of course global warming is real. But modeling the effects is very hard. I think deniers conflate the models with the trend.

reddytowns• 9 years ago

The news organizations feed people stories to reaffirm the their conclusions about global warming they made a long time ago. It feels good to feel like you're right all the time, so they shovel shit you already "know" along with additional stuff they want you to believe. So how's it feel to be used like that?

Edit: I know I've written things in the past that arguably deserved being downvoted, but this time it is uncalled for!

Oletros4• 9 years ago

Perhaps the downvote is by your implication that it is just fabrication from the news organizations

aaron6952• 9 years ago

While this week’s sharp temperature spike resulted from the arrangement of these intense weather systems, scientists say such spikes are probably becoming more frequent and intense. Rising greenhouse-gas concentrations are increasing average temperatures and shrinking Arctic sea ice. Earlier this week, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported January Arctic sea levels were the lowest on record.

This entire paragraph is why people deny global warming.

They admit we don't know if this is unusual. In fact we know it's a normal occurance, just it's 'probably' happening more often yet.... jump to Global Warming.

This is not science, this is politics and it's why people go hard the other way.

smallnamespace• 9 years ago

Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of running a double-blind placebo controlled trial on the relationship between CO2 emissions and the climate.

bmh_ca• 9 years ago

Venus already gave evidence. The Mariner missions gave us the atmospheric observations that clued us in to the possibility of CO2 as a greenhouse gas in the first place.

mekazu• 9 years ago

We know the greenhouse effect is real (just walk into a greenhouse and you'll know), so the only remaining question is whether CO2 causes a greenhouse effect in the earth's atmosphere. That should be reasonably easy to prove right? Sounds like basic chemistry (which I never did).

mablap3• 9 years ago

If you think this is not science, your conception of what science is is flawed. People deny anthropogenic global warming because they don't want to look at the details, take the time to really understand the issues.

Most people have no clue about anything going on around them except for what pays the bills (and even then). I was listening to some random radio host telling how "stupid" doctors and healthcare administrators are, that we should be concentrating our efforts on "prevention" rather than fitting a brand new hip onto a 96 year old person. He then went on to cite cancer patients in particular: we should not cure cancer, we should prevent it. His recommendation? "Preventative" MRI and SCANs for everybody over 30, because these would help "detect cancer" earlier.

I don't have to explain to you how clueless that man is/was. But there you have it. The general population is clueless about everything and people speak out of their asses all the time. So in a sense, you were right, but it's the other way around: the problem is politics and human nature, not science.

mod• 9 years ago

I don't think his point is that global warming study is not science, rather that no science is presented in the article (or the part he quoted, anyway).

An outlying temperature is just one data point, and on its own it doesn't really open the door to reliably talk about global warming.

mynegation• 9 years ago

Honest question about MRIs and scans: why is it clueless? I understand that implication is they are not effective (?)

dxhdr• 9 years ago

People deny anthropogenic global warming because they don't want to look at the details

There's a reasonable argument that we're fairly clueless about how most natural systems actually work. I heard recently that plate tectonics wasn't even a theory until the 70s! It's a tricky situation because the political aspect of global warming is both the only way to solve it and the thing getting in the way of it being solved.

I think people intuitively understand that science doesn't have this figured out. Which isn't to say the science is wrong! But papering over those gaps in knowledge by immediately ascribing all data to global warming does more to hurt the cause than help. It's easy to be a skeptic when there are so many low quality articles like this being produced.

vivekd• 9 years ago

Hold on a second, even given that global warming exists, there is no way this warm period is caused by global warming because you can't equate local weather to general climate.

The fact that the arctic or any region is experiencing warmer than usual weather lately doesn't mean that climate change is happening or that the weather is a result of climate change.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-sk...

aaron6952• 9 years ago

The article specifically states this is a normal occurrence.

It happened 100 years ago, it happened one thousand years ago.

It ponders perhaps it's happening more often, but brings no evidence to the table on this possibility while reporting on this natural occurrence.

If you think this is science, to use examples that have always happened to convince people of change, your conception of what science is is very very flawed.

And my point is, climate deniers can see this. They see through this fake pulp for the masses (I mean seriously the article even admits it's a normal occurrence) and use this to reinforce their opposite cult views.

tutanchamun• 9 years ago

Even if it were politics (which I don't think this is), what would we loose by upping our overall energy efficency and reducing our reliance on fossil energy (plus be more considerate of nature etc.)? I have never really thought about it, so I'm really curious about your thoughts, but as a cynical I would guess we only "loose" our coziness because it would require change which we humans seem to don't like.

simonh• 9 years ago

I have to agree completely with this comment. A Global Warming denier will read this as saying:

"Specific circumstances caused this, but probably Global warming is making things worse."

SO this isn't evidence of Global Warming and even mentioning it is just going to piss people off. I even accept that the statement is completely true. I'm convinced such spikes really are probably becoming more frequent and intense due to Global Warming.

However we're not talking about how I would read and understand this but how it would be perceived by a skeptic. On that score aaron695 is spot on.

WillyOnWheels• 9 years ago

Concerns about global warming are really concerns about dramatic temperature variances that occurs too quickly for humans to adapt to.

StClaire• 9 years ago

Hit 70 today in Denver.

avenoir• 9 years ago

Correction, it was actually 82. Absolutely insane.

yawz• 9 years ago

It is crazy! It was 68F(20C) at 8am.

We're supposed to have another few warm days next week.

rdudek• 9 years ago

You know, the last few Februaries were like that. Warm up around 60'ish and then it will trigger the trees and plants to start blooming, followed by winter hell in March. Remember last year we had that 2 ft snow in one day? Interesting times.

pmontra• 9 years ago

That's 50 F, 28 C.

helthanatos2• 9 years ago

I'm loving this winter. It's only snowed 3 times and has been below freezing for only a few weeks. In love with this winter, though I've been sick more times this year than quite a while.

sixothree• 9 years ago

Since October I've had to wear a jacket at work inside because of the air conditioning moreso than outside because of the weather.

satori99• 9 years ago

Meanwhile in Sydney, I'm sweating it out @ 45c (113F) in the middle of a heatwave like never before.

ehnto• 9 years ago

In Adelaode we tapped 38c, then had 3 days of record breaking rain which plonked it down to below 20c, which we followed up with four days at about 40c.

It's hard to dress correctly.

helthanatos2• 9 years ago

Hoping the summer doesn't go above 80 much... Hate that humidity. (Indiana) I'm fine with 110 in Arizona. How humid is it there?

nordify• 9 years ago

That sounds miserable. Give me a good cold winter with snow rather than a miserable non-winter that is damp, wet and slushy. Dry cold is far better than than damp thaw weather.

pinpelipon• 9 years ago

Ditto! We are approaching temperatures that could actually support the hardiest of palms. We can start replacing the spruces with palms soon.

The downsides being ticks becoming common, warmer temperatures enabling more diseases spreading in both human and animal populations, a few native animals dying (they can't breed without certain things such as ice, and their natural defense mechanisms do not work), and Gulf stream probably slowing and causing a new ice age. Ah yes, there's always that. But then again, not going to happen on my lifetime so who cares... :)

ChuckMcM• 9 years ago

I always dislike comments like this from the article: “Something is very, very wrong with the Arctic climate.”

The climate can't be "wrong" it has no agency. The impact of human CO2 production on climate can be "unprecedented" or "destabilizing" or "ill advised" but the word 'wrong' implies that there is a 'right' climate. We know that the climate changes on the planet, we emerged as the more annoying form of hominid during an ice age after all. "Something" caused that ice age, and "something" caused it to end, and that something could not possibly have been us. So who is responsible becomes less important in my mind as responding while we can with effective ways to live and prosper under different climates.

burke• 9 years ago

A charitable interpretation would be to project the right/wrong axis onto compatibility with our continued flourishing. If you accept human flourishing as "right", the arctic climate is quite wrong.

It's a bit of a reach through and I pretty much agree with your point.

btilly• 9 years ago

Those two somethings need not be the same.

We emerged during an interglacial. Which happens regularly during Ice Ages.

However we are now seeing conditions that could end the Ice Ages. And the "something" causing that is us.

themgt• 9 years ago

If a tree falls on your head it can't be "wrong", the tree has no agency. If a human cuts down the tree, knowing it is likely to fall on your head ... is who is responsible really important? Trees fall on heads all the time.

What about important questions, like effective ways for others to prosper while some are crushed by the massive industry of human-felled / human-crushing trees? Whether we could or should stop felling trees onto people is a question beyond science or human judgement on which to opine.

This sort of "climate trolley problem" is the final stage of pseudo-rational climate change denial, before it was "it isn't happening", now we're in a postmodernist semantic argument in the face of human destruction of our biosphere. How intellectual.

espadrine• 9 years ago

So who is responsible becomes less important in my mind as responding while we can with effective ways to live and prosper under different climates.

The hard fact is this: about a thousand politicians have the collective ability to make a large percentage of the planet no longer viable for humans for hundreds of years.

You likely know it to be true with regards to nuclear arsenal. Why would it be so hard to accept that the same goes for gas emissions?

Humans can burn or cut down phenomenally large forests — they have, and still do, at an increasingly faster rate, thanks to more and more sophisticated technology. Humans can, and do, drill into methane pockets underground, releasing large amounts of gas. And, of course, oil.

The second law of thermodynamics is a fact of life. There is no fully sustainable energy consumption scheme. Those we rely most on currently come from accidental geological events; primarily, the lack of bacterial enzymes able to consume lignin prior to the end of the Carboniferous.

Just like diagnosing a disease is necessary to get the meds needed to survive, understanding the mechanisms of our planet's viability is necessary for our sake.

gaspoweredcat• 9 years ago

the whole global warming thing seems to be a very contended issue but i think theres one thing we can all agree on, people need to stop using Fahrenheit

acqq4• 9 years ago

There are no graphs in the article to give you the whole context, that is, the longer-term measured climate changes. For that it helps looking at the yearly averages:

https://tamino.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/global-temperature-t...

These are averages over the whole year. The graph to consider specifically for Arctic is this one:

https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/arctic.jpg

coldcode• 9 years ago

The real question is not just about debating what is causing a rise in average temperature over the past half century, but whether there is anything we can do to change it. Deniers say people are not to blame so do nothing; the rest of us say people are the majority cause so change our behavior. The problem is we only have one earth, either we do nothing and all die eventually, or we do something and possibly we don't. In the long run the latter seems a far better bet: at worst we have a cleaner environment and a slightly slower economy versus a barren planet filled with roaches.

spodek• 9 years ago

whether there is anything we can do to change it

There is zero question if there is anything we can do to change it.

The question on the social level is if we will, as a species, regulate the behavior of individuals and institutions.

On the individual level the question is if you and I will choose to take responsibility and choose our behavior as individuals and stop saying, if a billion other people don't change it doesn't matter what I do so I won't change. We can all take responsibility for our personal actions. If people in previous generations had, we wouldn't face these issues. They didn't so we do, but maybe we can for future generations.

knz• 9 years ago

While I share your sense of personal responsibility being key to any hope of mitigating the impact for future generations, a recent project I've been involved with has left me feeling quite cynical about the chance of any meaningful impact.

The project was related to measuring greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation industry. Everyone is excited about the massive savings (potentially the largest single saving in the State) but the numbers are pathetic when you put them into an equivalency calculator (https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calc...).

My takeaway from the project has been that without dramatic and systematic change at a societal level nothing else really matters. At best we can mitigate and try to slow the impacts of climate change. The Sustainability Manager at my work has told me that the industry/literature/academics are also shifting towards talk of mitigation and resiliency now instead of prevention.

I hope I'm wrong but global GHG emissions are massive compared to the solutions we currently have.

kingkawn• 9 years ago

if the right wing is correct and these climate shifts are not due to our present efforts then the problem is far worse than if it were the result of pollution, and the effort to counter-balance the environmental shift will require much more social and economic adjustment.

It’s about 50°F warmer than normal near the North Pole again

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