http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=rapid-decline-mountain-snowpack-bad-new-western-us-rivers

"The decline is "almost unprecedented" over the past 800 years, say researchers who used tree rings to reconstruct a centuries-long record of snowpack throughout the entire Rocky Mountain range.

Their work, published yesterday in the journal Science, suggests that the plummeting snowpack could have serious consequences for more than 70 million people who depend on water from the runoff-fed Columbia, Colorado and Missouri rivers."

Well it is "almost unprecedented" - we have more now than ever!

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=134181&nid=149

I live about 2 1/2 hours away from the Columbia Icefield, which is the origin of the Columbia River, among others. I have flown over it - it looks (and is) massive from the air, but historical photos of the Athabasca Glacier show that it has receded a great deal in the past 50 years. I think there is cause for concern.

walked up to the Athabasca Glacier noting along the way the markers where the glacier used to be. As I recall, the glacier was near the present-day visitor's center around 1850 or so and has since moved far away from that spot. It seems recession of the glacier began before the industrial revolution got into full swing.

I also thought it was interesting that in the visitor's center there was a piece of an old tree recovered from the glacier as it receded that was ca. 8000 years old. It was postulated that the Athabasca has receded and recovered many times over the millennia and the last time it receded the climate conditions were apparently warm enough for a forest to grow where the glacier currently is.

Clearly the climate fluctuates, but how much is man-induced is the question that's difficult to give a definitive answer to.

I know that one year doesn't make a trend, but this year's snowpack in Idaho is also good:

"June 3, 2011, Boise, Idaho. Snow Surveyors from the Natural Resources Conservation Service recorded one of the deepest June 1 snowpacks ever measured in Idaho."

http://www.id.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/

I live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and there are still snow drifts on my property. The road south of here was closed by a landslide due to the saturated soil. We have pretty much been in drought conditions since the late 90's.

I will admit we are seeing some interesting weather changes worldwide. Right now it seems to be going from one extreme to another. I don't think anyone knows what's causing it or what really is happening. There are too many variables and all these scientific articles do is tell us the results of some of those variables. I don't think anyone has a handle on the big picture and also much of this global warming scare seems to be economically and politically motivated. It's seems like we can solve all the world's problems if we give up our privacy, freedoms, and money.

Not only that, the media has been hyping the fear that the world is ending unless we roll over and give some corporations and the government more power over us.

I'm sorry but it all reminds me of what religion has done over the centuries. Scare the shit out of people and then offer an escape from the wrath of the problem. Amazingly the solution is giving your money to some authority figures and giving them more power over you.

I'm starting to think environmentalism is the new modern replacement scam for the old school religions.

++ good

That carbon dioxide cause global warming is grade school text book chemistry and not up for debate. This is basic chemistry and not someone's opinion. And that the raise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by humans is also not in question. You are right that there are many more variables though. Water being among the most unpredictable as it works both as a green house gas and in various ways against global warming.

And finally it's not science but media that has worked to blow scenarios out of proportion, they have a vested interest in picking and choosing the most spectacular scenarios while ignoring the mainstream consensus (and so media does in pretty much every other field of science too).

Al Gore and his lie-ridden movie that is forced upon kids in science class here in many American schools, and scientists at that climate institute in the UK where they were shredding their 'data' faster than Hillary Clinton at the Rose Law firm?

You've got to be kidding...

So according to which chemistry text book is carbon dioxide not a green house gas? According to what alternative mechanisms other than burning of fossil fuels has the level of green house gases increased so dramatically over the last 200 years? These are the questions you should answer if you wish to refute my previous post.

You don't refute scientific facts and theories by dragging in politics. I don't care what Al gore said or didn't say, in fact I've never seen that movie, but from what I can gather I'd have to answer: yep that's media, not science. Case in point of what I meant - A media circus exaggerating scientific claims for reasons other than honesty. However the scientists working on the issue have reached a consensus about it long time ago and I'm astonished that it seems that the majority of americans are so uneducated as to not know a thing about it or worse think this is a matter of political opinion.

I am so sick of Al Gore's name being brought up when discussing science. He has nothing to do with science.
Global warming and climate change are established scientific facts. Quite separate from politics.
How anyone can expect a planet's climate to stay the same forever is beyond me. This planet won't even EXIST forever, much less keep the same climate. The climate has always been changing.
People's political knee-jerk reactions cause them to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

A very big +1.

Climate change is happening, weather (lol, get it?) people want to admit it not.

and it released in HEAVY quantities in the Catatumbo region of Venezuela!! in fact it creates what is known as the Catatumbo lighting and can be seen from the Atlantic ocean and is also know as the Maracaibo Lighthouse
just sayin....

You do not understand it so therefore it is not real.

go back to watching fox "news" . You are getting low on pablum.

The dishonest crap they are parroting from fox is so predictable.

and THEY LOST!! Supreme court held that there is no law governing whether or not the news they report is true!! so Faux can report crap they make up!!
thta should be in Ripleys believe it or not!! :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2011 06:45PM by bignevermo.

I live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and there are still snow drifts on my property. The road south of here was closed by a landslide due to the saturated soil. We have pretty much been in drought conditions since the late 90's.

I will admit we are seeing some interesting weather changes worldwide. Right now it seems to be going from one extreme to another. I don't think anyone knows what's causing it or what really is happening. There are too many variables and all these scientific articles do is tell us the results of some of those variables. I don't think anyone has a handle on the big picture and also much of this global warming scare seems to be economically and politically motivated. It's seems like we can solve all the world's problems if we give up our privacy, freedoms, and money.

Not only that, the media has been hyping the fear that the world is ending unless we roll over and give some corporations and the government more power over us.

I'm sorry but it all reminds me of what religion has done over the centuries. Scare the shit out of people and then offer an escape from the wrath of the problem. Amazingly the solution is giving your money to some authority figures and giving them more power over you.

I'm starting to think environmentalism is the new modern replacement scam for the old school religions.

Global Warming is REAL. The only question is how much of the warming is part of a natural cycle and how much is being caused by human activities. It is not about fear mongering. It is scientists who are studying climate data and seeing an alarming trend and sounding the alarm because if we wait until we have all the data on this one it may be too late for us to do anything about it.

Over it's 4.5 billion year lifetime, the Earth's climate has fluctuated greatly. At one time the entire planet was covered with a sheet of ice over a mile thick. At other times, most of the planet was essentially a tropical rain forest. Just 10 thousand years ago the last ice age ended and the earth's climate has been slowly warming. There is no reason we should expect the earth's climate to not continue to change in the future.

The climate changes can be caused by such things as shifts in the earth's orbit; variations in the heat output from the sun; changes in ocean currents as the result of continental drift; and changes in the composition of the earth's atmosphere to name a few.

The problem is, since the industrial revolution started about 200 years ago, humans have put HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Much of the carbon dioxide is absorbed by the environment by the oceans and even certain types of rocks. The problem is, it is not being absorbed as fast as it's being generated. All of the science shows that CO2 levels are higher now than at any time in the earth's history. This is dangerous because it is accelerating a warming trend that already exists.

Humans, and most of our food crops, have adapted to the climate we have now. What do you think will happen if the average temperature is 5, 10, 15 degrees warmer? And not just that, with warmer temperatures come changes in rain and snow patterns. We could very easily find ourselves living on a planet that no longer supports us.

Almost 99% of ALL of the species of plants and animals that have ever existed on this planet are now extinct. I certainly hope humans don't end up on that list.

+1

Climate change is real.......

the only question is whether it is man made, or part of a natural cycle.

only a moron denies global climate change...... unfortunately there are a lot of morons who mix up the arguments about 'man made' Vs 'natural' and assumes they are arguments about 'real' Vs 'not real'

There are a lot of rivers in the western US that are flooding or close to it. The question is not "is the flood man made or not?" The real question is "what are we going to do about it so our property and lives are not ruined?"

Ditto with climate change. If the changes are not disruptive, we don't really need to do anything. If they are disruptive, the cause is kind of beside the point. What are we going to do to minimize the disruption?

If the general heat balance of the earth is going up, adding CO2 to the atmosphere is probably not a great idea. IMO, that horse has left the barn. We have already added a great deal of CO2 to the air, and show no signs of slowing down. We can now watch and see where the dice land.

and up to 700% in some drainage areas. 7 people have died in runoff torrents so far this spring.

The earth's temp goes up and down. Those who say that man is the culprit are up to no good.

I've lived in Utah all my live and I'm 48 years old. For the first 21 years I lived in Utah county and the rest I've lived in Salt Lake County, but visit relative in Utah county often.

When I was a kid, we ALWAYS had snow, and lots of it, during the winter. Some years we had only a foot or two on the ground and others we had three or four feet but there was ALWAYS snow on the ground through December, January, February, and March. The hill I used to sled on was always packed with snow.

That's not the case much any more. We're getting a lot less snow and a lot more rain during the winter months and when we do get snow, we get less of it and it stays on the ground for a shorter period of time. Even this year, with the record snow pack in the mountains, we had very little snow in the valley floor. There are, of course, years that are an exception. The winter of 1992-1993 had an extreme amount of snow. I had piles of snow six feet high on both sides of my driveway. Still, the trend has been towards less and less snow. Oh, and that hill I used to sled down is now covered with grass most of the winter. There is usually only snow on it in January and February now.

Anyone who thinks that the human activity plays no part in global warming is playing a dangerous game a Russian Roulette with the fate of the human race. There may be time for humans to make changes that could have a real impact in the future.

One other thing. With rising temperatures comes rising sea levels. Take a look at this: http://flood.firetree.net/

helemon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=r
> apid-decline-mountain-snowpack-bad-new-western-us-
> rivers
>
> "The decline is "almost unprecedented" over the
> past 800 years, say researchers who used tree
> rings to reconstruct a centuries-long record of
> snowpack throughout the entire Rocky Mountain
> range.
>
> Their work, published yesterday in the journal
> Science, suggests that the plummeting snowpack
> could have serious consequences for more than 70
> million people who depend on water from the
> runoff-fed Columbia, Colorado and Missouri
> rivers."


For this year at least, the Rocky Mtn snowpack seems concentrated in the Wasatch range in UT. Google rivers flooding in UT,,





just sayin.........

I was going to object to this thread since my knee-jerk is this is not religion. But global warming science is religious.

Science that is dependent upon government funding is in danger of corruption.
In my view, the East Anglia leaked emails were a troubling sign of corruption in the environmental science industry. When one of their models stopped working, they falsified data.
And someone needs to slap them.

A closer look suggests no one is clean. The Algore is a fat swindler and the Algore critics have some of their science wrong. But not all.
For anyone to say "the debate is over" (WRT anthropogenic climate change) is making a declaration of faith/superstition and not of science.

One of my close friends in entangled in this government-money funding world and when I present evidence, she gives me Pascal's Wager as her best rebuttal.

Carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas.
Water is, too. Seen any water on the "blue planet"?

Let's compare the heat capacities of these two greenhouse gasses at ambient temperatures:
Water ~ 1.99 KJ/kg K
CO2 ~ 1.7 LK/kg K

Okay. The amount of water in the atmosphere varies greatly as a function of the weather. The amount of CO2 does not vary as a function of the weather for several reasons that are explained by its equations of state.

The principal gases of dry air are:
Nitrogen 78%
Oxygen 21%
Argon 0.9%
CO2 0.036%
Others < 0.003% this includes methane that is produced by farting cows and my Aunt Ruth.

But remember, water is also in the atmosphere and it can have the effect of greenhouse warming that can contribute above 80% of the waming -- and cooling.

As Joni Mitchell and IPCC sing:
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions i recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.

That's right. Clouds.

What happens to the desert on a cloudy day? It doesn't get as hot.
What happens to the desert on a cloudless night? It gets down to freezing.
What is carbon dioxide's effect?
Who is making all that evil carbon dioxide and methane?

Mother Nature, mostly (and my Aunt Ruth).

The consumption of terrestrial vegetation by animals and by microbes (rotting, in other words) emits about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 every year, while respiration by vegetation emits another 220 Gt.
Additionally,parts of the oceans release about 330 Gt of CO2 per year, depending on temperature and rates of photosynthesis by phytoplankton.

And man's contribution?
Human emissions of CO2 (including my Aunt Ruth's breathing) are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt.

That is about 3.3% produced by man and 96.7% produced by Mother Nature. (source: IPCC, excluding my Aunt Ruth's contribution)

Basic chemistry: CH4 + 2O2 ==> CO2 + 2H2O. When we burn natural gas, we make twice as much water as carbon dioxide. This ratio goes down as fossil fuels become complex.
For example, when we burn propane we get:
CH3-CH2-CH3 + 5O2 ==> 3CO2 + 4H2O. In this case, we get 3 CO2s for every 4 waters.

The more CO2 that is available for plants to use during photosynthesis, the faster the plants grow.
The saturation point is about 11 times the current value of CO2 in the atmosphere (where plants can't absorb more). Very complex models for this, however.
Argument:
An increasing presence of CO2 in the atmosphere, even at the current 0.036% CO2 is too insignificant an amount to cause the current global warming trend.
Rebuttal:
Oh yea!? Well that much cyanide would kill a human! And Just look at how we lowered ozone emissions and shrank the natural ozone hole over the South Pole!
Surrebuttal:
Carbon dioxide is not a poison like cyanide and carbon dioxide is not reactive like ozone.
Try another rebuttal.

None is forthcoming.

Which is the car with the biggest carbon footprint?
The electric car!
It gets its electricity from coal!
Electricity does not come out of the wall. I comes from the electric plant downtown. What are they doing to generate the electricity? They are burning coal!(which boils water which makes steam which turns a turbine which spins a dynamo which makes Nikola Tesla's alternating-current electricity). The coal makes carbon dioxide and water.
Ad hominem ammunition for my critics:

I am a scientist, an environmental engineer, an environmental lawyer, an athiest, a Liberterian (yeah, I'm scared of Libertarians, too), a Social Darwinist, and a Biological Darwinist. I am a member of Sierra Club and the NRA. Square peg, to be sure.

Having declared that, I lay myself open to criticism.

First of all, the "leaked emails" turned out to be absolutely nothing. Here's a video of exactly what was "leaked".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8Ve6KE-Us&feature=player_embedded#at=835
You probably won't watch this, as you seem to already have your mind made up.

Some of your other points show an ignorance on what global warming, and how greenhouse gasses work.

Here is the basic science. Without including the effect of carbon dioxide in the warming/cooling of the earth, the historical warming/cooling cannot be explained. In other words, we know exactly how much carbon dioxide contributes to the warming/cooling of the planet based on "evidence".

We know that the current levels of carbon dioxide provide a warming effect, based on the historical "evidence" as well as laboratory experiments on this warming effect.

We know exactly how much of the current level of carbon dioxide are a result of human actions in the past two hundred years.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

Putting these three things together we know that humans are creating more carbon dioxide than the planet can absorb. We know how much of this excess ends up in the air, and we know how much of a warming effect this will cause.

amartin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First of all, the "leaked emails" turned out to be
> absolutely nothing. Here's a video of exactly
> what was "leaked".
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8Ve6KE-Us&feature
> =player_embedded#at=835



> You probably won't watch this, as you seem to
> already have your mind made up.

I've seen it. I believe publishing the falsified tree-ring data is criminal in the UK. No hand-slapping or criminal charges. This is called corruption.
Michael E Mann wrote ""I cannot condone some things that collegues of mine wrote or requested in the emails recently stolen from a climate research unit at a British university." (SL Tribune Dec. 22, 2009, page A15)
And no, I have not made my mind up. Obviously you have.
>
> Some of your other points show an ignorance on
> what global warming, and how greenhouse gasses
> work.

Which ones? Please explain. You can't get away with a naked assertion. Only Wieners can do that.
>
> Here is the basic science. Without including the
> effect of carbon dioxide in the warming/cooling of
> the earth, the historical warming/cooling cannot
> be explained. In other words, we know exactly how
> much carbon dioxide contributes to the
> warming/cooling of the planet based on
> "evidence".
>
Oh really?
It looks more like a basic conclusion. Pons and Fleischmann made a similar assertion in their landmark paper:
"It is inconceivable that this excesse energy is from any other souce than fusion."
And what caused the global warming 65 million years ago that caused the massive coal beds to be formed. Adam would not be born for another 64,994,000 years.

> We know that the current levels of carbon dioxide
> provide a warming effect, based on the historical
> "evidence" as well as laboratory experiments on
> this warming effect.
>
> We know exactly how much of the current level of
> carbon dioxide are a result of human actions in
> the past two hundred years.
> http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-
> than-natural-emissions.htm

I disagree. Your model is "highly smoothed" and does not take into effect significant factors. We call this exponential bullsh*t in peer review.
>
> Putting these three things together we know that
> humans are creating more carbon dioxide than the
> planet can absorb. We know how much of this
> excess ends up in the air, and we know how much of
> a warming effect this will cause.

I disagree.
What is needed is honest peer review of your religion ahem, science. I suggest government-funded critics that are as motivated to disprove your religion as you are to prove it. Incidentally, how much is your salary paid by federal research grants?
Currently studying "The Affect of Anthropogenic Climate Change on the Mating Habits of the Sharp-Tailed Grouse in East Dagget County"?

"Which ones? Please explain. You can't get away with a naked assertion. Only Wieners can do that."

You mean other than the link about your "And man's contribution" claim.

"Oh really?
It looks more like a basic conclusion."

Please refute one of those facts which I mentioned. You don't. You just send up another random red-herring question "And what caused the global warming 65 million years ago ?" I can answer that one as well, but you'll probably not read it, as you haven't read the others, and send another idiotic question that has already been answered many times.

"I disagree.
What is needed is honest peer review of your religion ahem, science. I suggest government-funded critics that are as motivated to disprove your religion as you are to prove it. Incidentally, how much is your salary paid by federal research grants?
"

You sound like a lunatic. There are thousands of peer-reviewed articles to back me up. You resort to ad-hominem attacks.

you are incoherent.
ad hominem, incidentally means attack the individual, not his argument. please show one of your arguments where I attacked you instead of your assertion.
I triple-dog dare 'ya!

"Incidentally, how much is your salary paid by federal research grants?"

That's not an attack on my motives?

You need to look at what sources you are reading for all of this "evidence" that you are presenting to your friend.

The questions that you list, have all been answered time and time again, yet you persist.

Your question asking "And what caused the global warming 65 million years ago that caused the massive coal beds to be formed. Adam would not be born for another 64,994,000 years." is a complete red herring. This is like saying that a man cannot create a forest fire, because forest fires occurred before man existed. It doesn't have anything to do with the global warming question.

"What is needed is honest peer review of your religion ahem, science"

The argument of someone who has no clue what science really is.

Big diff between what one can prove using the scientific method (replicatable facts, etc.) and being high on religious endorphins.

Science is about as far from religion as it gets.

It seems to me that arguing about all this is exactly what Big Oil and Coal want. They want to pit us against each other so we don't see what's really going on.

The human race is on the brink of extinction and arguing is becoming more and more futile. Look around and you'll see a planet totally changing. Something's causing that, but it couldn't possibly be us little humans, could it?

Scientists can trace the isotopes of CO2 and see exactly where they came from - what type of source, fossil fuels, etc. It's not a guess, we're warming the planet to our own demise. Too bad we're taking everything else with us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2011 05:48PM by lostinutah.

"And what caused the global warming 65 million years ago that caused the massive coal beds to be formed. Adam would not be born for another 64,994,000 years."

Google Carboniferous - your dates are a bit off - most of the coal was formed a few hundred million years earlier.

The Carboniferous actually was one of the few times that had CO2 levels more like today's.

water is NOT a gas!!
water vapor is!
Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth's surface would be on average about 33 °C (59 °F)[note 1] colder than at present.[2][3][4]
and methane should not be just skimmed over when you consider when it breaks down...they results are still greenhouse gases....water vapor and CO2
and here is more on Aunties farts and such:

The mole fraction of methane in the Earth's atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 nmol/mol (parts per billion, ppb), up from 700 nmol/mol in 1750. By 2008, however, global methane levels, which had stayed mostly flat since 1998, had risen to 1,800 nmol/mol.[6] By 2010, methane levels, at least in the Arctic, were measured at 1850 nmol/mol, a level scientists described as being higher than at any time in the previous 400,000 years.[7] Historically, methane concentrations in the world's atmosphere have ranged between 300 and 400 nmol/mol during glacial periods commonly known as ice ages, and between 600 to 700 nmol/mol during the warm interglacial periods.
in other words even small amounts can have a great affect.....I fart in thy general direction!! :)




just sayin!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2011 07:23PM by bignevermo.

arguing with creationists. Fruitless.

+10

They refuse to even look at facts. They use ad hominem attacks. They are typically very fearful people who watch Fox news and don't know how to think critically.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2011 05:14PM by lostinutah.

my take is that the only reason the RNC crowd is agin environmentalism is because the Dems got there first.

and, as stated previously, it's in the interest of Big Oil and Coal to obfuscate the issue.

ice age that covers most of the hemisphere and on. :-)

I'm not going to jump into the debate on the technicalities of the science on this subject, but do want to mention something about the economic/political motives that several posters have alluded to.

No doubt there are some "environmental advocates" who are selfishly looking to gain politically or economically, but they are the exception. I really don't see what the scientific community (most of it not government funded) gains by warning about climate change. What is concerning, however, is the powerful group of people who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (for political and mainly economic reasons).

And, on a secondary note, hypothetically if climate-change is shown to be a sham, why not change how we do things if it can:

-cut down on toxic pollution
-diminish our reliance on oil
-create new jobs via new innovations ???????

We can see them from space, and each experience the effects as they directly affect us, namely how easily we can get sunburned now. It's gotten so much worse in just a few years. How much worse are we going to let all of this get before we start really doing something about it?

Not climate change, but another case of human over consumption: the Ogala aquifer is continuing its rapid depletion at a much faster rate than it's being added to. At the rate we're going, the plains will become a dustbowl again. This is well documented. Look it up if you dare, or keep your heads safely in your ostrich holes, if you find that more comforting.

Why is it funny? Climate change is harming the ozone layer, making our atmosphere less protective of us, i.e., sunburns are easier to get.

The drought in Texas, OK, S. CO, etc. is now worse than that of the dustbowl. Food prices are going to keep going up as we continue to lose more crops.

If you want to know more about global warming, check out climateprogress.org

A lot of knowledgeable people hang out there, the comments are very good. Lots of information and science.

If what's going on around you doesn't make you wonder, then you're in denial or brainwashed or both. Climate change is very very real. The oil and coal industries are spending huge fortunes to keep it quiet, but nature's not cooperating.

Here's a good video about how climate deniers work.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=24

That's like saying, well, we're all going to die anyway, so let's just ignore the fact that we're helping make our and other species go extinct.

Do any of you have grandchildren? I don't and yet I'm gladly changing my lifestyle so try to benefit future generations, assuming there will be any. I try to live as sustainably as possible.

In short, I think the deniers are unwilling to change their consumptive lifestyles, so they pretend nothing's happening. A very selfish outlook.

Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xhCY-3XnqS0

Mitt Romney refuses to cave to big business pressure to deny human created climate change.

Rush Limbaugh says with that stance, Romney is through politically.

Who are the Mormons going to side with, Rush or Mitt?

And if they side with Mitt, how are they going to save face when they suddenly stop denying human created climate change?

Seems like they have a dilemma on their hands.