So I was boarding these past few days in southern France and Italy (Isola 2000 and Limone if you're interested). OK snow conditions, nothing to write home about, good spring skiing with warm balmy weather, bright sun and blue skies.
In February.
It got me thinking about all the homes and condos in these areas, many for sale today. Will they hold their values as ski conditions continue to deteriorate? When the snow goes away, will the people still come? I think not.
I spoke to some of the locals and to a person they all said that it just gets worse every year. And I think this scenario is playing out around Europe and around the world. If you want good skiing, you'll have to go north - which will be good for those areas (hello Canada and Sweden), bad for the popular and famous ski areas around here.
But what other cities will have homes declining in value as global warming really kicks in, and the reason for their popularity goes away, or they go under water, or get their butts kicked by wild storms, or insurance gets impossible to buy.
New Orleans - no brainer.
Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Naples, etc - goodbye.
The Carolinas - wouldn't want to be near the coast.
Amsterdam - better build on stilts
Venice - get there while you still can.
Phoenix and Vegas - good luck finding water or a cool place in a few years.
And on the flipside - what areas will be global warming winners? I need to spend some time in Iceland and the Nordics, and Canada ain't looking too bad in NA.
Chime in here. I know a few of you (probably part of the 19% below) still doubt (or don't understand) global warming science. I hope you spend a couple hours of your life and at least start doing your own research and get beyond your Al Gore hatred. Forget the messenger, read the science yourselves. I doubt the nay-sayers have spent 1 minute looking at the science, which is par for the course and to be expected among the ignorant.
No matter what you do, think twice about buying that house on the beach in Tampa. Or that ski condo in Bulgaria.
February 20, 2008
When you buy a home, should you consider what global warming will do to its value over the next 50 or so years?
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Don't get too worked up over Anthropogenic Global Warming. The hype is far beyond reasonable or scientific. It is something new to be afraid of that generates grants and public funding projects. Watch and see, the short-term predictions (next ten years) will all be wrong.
If and when sea levels begin to rise noticeably, we build massive desalinization plants on all coasts to convert salt water into potable water. That offsets the rise in sea levels while providing much needed fresh water to Arizona and California.
Problems solved ;)
I'm on the Island of Montreal, and have been thinking of moving closer to the waterfront. But if scientists are right and water levels creep up, I'd be better off staying where I am now, in the center of the island.
For sure no one is looking at that variable today and maybe the floods won't happen for a couple of decades but it still got me thinking that if I move now and stay put near the water for 10-15 years, buyers by then might be considering water levels in the decade ahead, then I'd be screwed.
So even in Canada, in one single city, the price equation of real estate could be drastically impacted by environmental changes.
In this hemisphere, aim for the Arctic Ocean rim in permafrost-free areas. These are going to become perfect summertime resorts - no oppressive heat and continuous sunlight.
Andrew, who never traveled any further south than 54°N.
I don't put much stock in "global warming" but I do believe in climate change. It's absurd to think the planet is a static environment that you can capture or manage. If you're bent on global warming remember that in the 1970s the rage was "global cooling" - we were all supposed to freeze to death. It on the cover of Time magazine.
This has so many parallels to the economy. Imagine if we had a Federal Weather Bureau that tried to manipulate the short term weather pattern? Sound familiar? I think it's good to go green, but foolish to think you can manage climate or hold it static.
Global Warming?
Bwhahaha!
I heard there is global warming on Mars, maybe you should check out some properties there as well.
Britain is the new med... Say good-bye to Ibiza and hello to Brighton
"Don't get too worked up over Anthropogenic Global Warming. The hype is far beyond reasonable or scientific. It is something new to be afraid of that generates grants and public funding projects. Watch and see, the short-term predictions (next ten years) will all be wrong."
Agreed, I find it laughable that anyone believes this crap when every single past doomsday prediction of the environmental lobby has been 180-degrees ass backwards wrong.
But hey we live in a nation of sheeple who believe everything they see on the 6 o'clock news and are too lazy to do their own research.
Yes, and right next to them, build massive Nuclear plants to provide the power for the desalinization.
And next to those, build holding areas for all the spent nuclear fuel.
And next to those, build massive prisons for all the anti-nuke protesters and nuclear terrorists trying break in to sabotage.
I HAVE AN IDEA--how about just USING LESS FOSSIL-FUELS??!?!
(Just so you know, I don't own a car and hardly ever drive one--I walk/bike to work.)
Screw global warming how were the ladies?!
Won't rising sea levels wipe out half of London? Now there is a thought; all those overpriced houses permanently under water.
Anonymous said...
If and when sea levels begin to rise noticeably, we build massive desalinization plants on all coasts to convert salt water into potable water. That offsets the rise in sea levels while providing much needed fresh water to Arizona and California.
Problems solved ;)
Hey thanks for that quick and easy.
Since you have such great solutions to the world's problems, could you address this for us?
http://tinyurl.com/2znv4d
and this:
http://tinyurl.com/yw3l4x
I am just so goddamn glad that I live in America, Land of Innovation and Technology
Anonymous said...
Global Warming?
Bwhahaha!
February 20, 2008 8:23 PM
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I heard there is global warming on Mars, maybe you should check out some properties there as well.
You people really think you are immortal don't you :-)????
hahahahahahaha
Nothing bad can eber happin to us Elmer, cuz were Mericans. Mericans are blest.
When I bought a house in the 1970's I considered the coming Ice Age predicted by all the scientists and intellectuals back then. BWHAHAHAHA
Keith - it's obvious you haven't actually read the science. There's a difference between reading the science and reading a bunch of scientists give their opinion. Your link doesn't even have any science - just a bunch of scientist's opinions. The article doesn't even tell you what kind of scientists these guys are.
What's the most prevelant green house gas? Oh yeah - water. There's some science for you.
For someone who doesn't want to follow the hype, and doesn't want to be one of the sheeple, you sure stumbled into this one - hook, line and sinker.
Greenland has a volcano under it. This sea level rise will happen a lot faster than you like. You can scoff but have those waders ready.
Keith said..
When you buy a home, should you consider what global warming will do to its value over the next 50 or so years?
Europe is changing you. Starting to think global instead of local.
(Just so you know, I don't own a car and hardly ever drive one--I walk/bike to work.)
Not everyone can live close enough to work to walk/bike. Not every city has good public transportation. Families with children cannot walk/bike everywhere. Good for you, but how about everyone else? People in Africa can criticize you for using too much fossil fuels since they sit around in their huts all day. Maybe you should live more like them.
These are going to become perfect summertime resorts - no oppressive heat and continuous sunlight.
Swarms of mosquitos the size of birds.
Haha. Keith, broaden your horizons a little a travel to China, where they are currently having blizzards the likes of which have not been seen in over 50 years.
I heard it snowed in Baghdad too, something that had not happened in around 100 years.
Please explain how these fit into the "science".
Funny how Florida had the one bad season of storms, and has had basically nothing since, even though the "scientists" predicted major hurricanes again. Does not mean they can't happen, just means our scientists don't know everything.
Yes.
However, I am more worried about a sudden cataclysmic event than I am global warming - with global warming will be slow and institutions will generally remain. Not so with the other.
Republicans hate science
"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." -- Ronald Reagan, 1981
"It’s an issue that we need to take very seriously. But I’m not going to let the US carry the burden for cleaning up the world’s air, like the Kyoto treaty would have done. China and India were exempted from that treaty - George W. Bush
"where they are currently having blizzards the likes of which have not been seen in over 50 years."
Yes one more person who has never read any of the science and has no comprehension of the issue
Man, ignorance on this scale is sad to see. I expect better from HP'ers. Are you that busy in life that you can't dedicate an hour to reading about the issue?
keith, there is no such thing as global warming. it is going to get colder.....go with the contrarian analysis on this. good grief...
now you talk about this global warming crap. and on top of that you support a bisexual crack head for president. man sometimes i wonder about this...
A bit long but an excellent video discussion about global warming by scientists. Highly recommended, Suzanne weighs in with her thoughts at the end ;)
http://tinyurl.com/2kkd4h
I'm betting on Oregon, which is where I bought a home and have some very nice renters paying it off for me. I think the weather there is only going to get better.
didn't they have colorful and neat little charts and stuff to support the ozone layer and global cooling hoaxes?
Keith, all you have to know about global warning is this:
For every 'scientist' who says it's happening, there's another 'scientist' who says it's not.
Look, it's either happening or it's not. As it's the ones who are saying it IS happening that are yelling the loudest, THEY are the ones not to be believed. And with all things political - and this issue is - just follow the money...
P.S. I don't really care either way. We're ALL going to be exterminated very soon anyway.
Actually Keith the North Atlantic Gyre may just stop and the warm waters from the Gulf of Mexico may stop warming Europe. Quite ironic that global warming could make most of Europe like Alaska. These things are way more complicated.
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/rapid/sis/sistop.php
My home in the Florida Hills will become worth MILLIONS as the new Florida Beachfront property. YES!!!!
This topic is irrelevant to most.
Keefer, take a 1 week break from the BBC and you’ll feel better.
It is one of the dumbest subjects to discuss.
Nuff said.
Apparently, the climate is changing, and getting somewhat warmer - disappearing glaciers, retreating and thinning ice at the Arctic circle, etc. Whether it is manmade or not is up for debate - but it is not relevant to the question "What will the global warming do to real estate values?"
It is an important perpective, because when people buy pieces of land, they usually do not take into consideration external factors, they just assume everything will stay as is. Weather patterns are notoriously unpredictable in certain locations, just see how Latin America is being devastated by two consecutive years of El Nino and La Nina - all houses are literally underwater. Europe also had lots of cold and hot times, the 18th century was the coldes, with polar ices reaching the German shore of the Northern Sea.
Sometimes we forget that our day-to-day worries and decisions are but a small speck on the face of the Universe.
I challenge you to find a dozen scienists that say no?
About 99.9% of scientists say yes. You must be getting your stats from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News?
>For every 'scientist' who says it's happening, there's another 'scientist' who says it's not.
The Russians say it's sunspots not CO2 which is causing the slight warming.
I think it's like 1 degree F over the past 100 years.
If we do everything teh extremists wants, it'll (according to them) cause the warming over the next 100 years to be 4 degrees F instead of 6. BFD.
Al Gore said we have 10 years left, 2 years ago. So let's just wait 8 more years and then we'll never have to hear about this stuff anymore.
I like this guy's approach to dealing with the unknowable.
Go to youtube and search for:
Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See
Also, I read that the Amazon river became the deepest river in the world during the last ice age by having a low sea level (from all the ocean water being tied up in the ice caps) and thus the meltwaters from the Andes carved deeply into the land to reach that lowered sea level. What's that mean? Nothing, just that planetary forces are freakin' awesome.
Obviously, natural forces far exceed human forces, but there is only one planet and billions of virus humans, Neo.
12/21/2012 approaches.
keith said...
"where they are currently having blizzards the likes of which have not been seen in over 50 years."
Yes one more person who has never read any of the science and has no comprehension of the issue
Man, ignorance on this scale is sad to see. I expect better from HP'ers. Are you that busy in life that you can't dedicate an hour to reading about the issue?
Keith, it must be really hard to begin seeing your base for what they are. Your views are changing because you have left Oz and are on the outside looking in. You are beginning to see Oz the way everyone in Munchkin land, outside the dome sees it.
Just don't start talking about roasting the snapper turtle okay?
The longer you stay away, the less you will want to return.
I don't know why you're so surprised by the reaction Keith. You've got more than a few of the 19%'ers around here.
They are the same people who deny there is a health care crisis and believe the uninsured are well cared for in emergency rooms; and that homeless people live that way by choice. They love drinking that Republican koolaid. Their reasons for being HP'ers are different from mine (and yours too I think, although I would never presume to speak for you). For them it's all about the hatred and the suffering, and what they think they can gain from it.
Your more progressive readership comes out in the polls, and the rightwing nutjob bigots come out in the comments. I would try to help you talk sense into them but I've learned it's a pointless waste of energy. They are meaner, more selfish and vocal, and impossible to have an intelligent conversation with.
Kieth said, 'Baaaaahh baaaaaahhhhh baaaahhhh baaahhhh'
and then followed up with: 'Baaaaahhh baaahhhh baaaaahhhh'
and then all of the scientists requesting funding said, 'baaaaahhh baaaaaaaahhhh'
Sheeple.....
The scientists you quoted talked about a cyle less than 2000 years long. The earth is billions of years old. The longest cycle your "scientists" use is less than 400,000 years long. Read some of the science, then get back to us Keith. Unless you would rather 'baaaaaaahhhhh baaaaaaahhhh baaaaahhhhhh'
I think the Keith who started Housing Panic has been kidnapped. First he turns on Ron Paul, now he sounds like any one of the other sheeple. Next he'll be saying the credit bubble was a myth and it's time to load up on some new exotic debt to buy cheap crap we'll never need...
I'll get to the bottom of it - check out the new HP poll
I think we have lots of realtor readers, so should be an interesting result
:&)
Tell you what, back to my original question, even the doubters, if you would go ahead and suspend your disbelief, and IF we global warming doomsayers end up being right (as we will), what cities or countries are gonna be the winners and losers
Since in my book global warming, like evolution and gravity, is settled science, what I'm interested in is who's gonna be the winners and who's gonna be the losers
If I had to take one of each
Winner: Canada
Loser: Italy
The entire continent of Africa of course is screwed. But in terms of developed countries, those are my picks
Gotta run now - Waterworld is on, after that Mad Max
But gravity is just a theory!
I generally believe in global warming, as it is described by the scientists in the IPCC.
Key predictions are
- Raising water levels (by perhaps a couple of feet or a little more)
- Increasing average temps (by a couple of degrees), and more frequent heat waves
- Maybe increased storm/hurricane frequency, but there is more controversy and uncertainty about this one.
It strikes me that these effects should have rather modest impact on housing decisions. I will avoid very low, very hot and very stormy locations but then again I probably would anyway.
"I heard there is global warming on Mars, maybe you should check out some properties there as well.
You people really think you are immortal don't you :-)????
hahahahahahaha
Nothing bad can eber happin to us Elmer, cuz were Mericans. Mericans are blest."
There actually IS global warming on Mars, which would tend to show that the global warming on Earth has nothing to do with humans, but rather more likely something more "universal" like the sun, as others have suggested. Also, as others have mentioned, scientists are already starting to worry about global cooling due to less sun spot activity.
Keith, please stick to something you know (housing) and leave the stock markets and global warming to others. (BTW, have you loaded up on AAPL yet? It'd be funny to watch you lose all the money you made shorting the homebuilders when AAPL returns to $80).
Early HP polling data shows what I expected - HP'ers are smart, but a few loud and ignorant (and Fox News watching ones) can hog the comments
Gregory, maybe you can explain to me why climate change critics frequently cite that one 'global cooling' article from one independent scientist in the 70s as proof that the hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed articles and thousands of research scientists are wrong about modern day CO2 based global warming theory.
Living in Ohio with a condo on the lake, I've been enjoying the "global warming" so much that I keep my lawnmower running even after I'm done. I won't tune up anything and I buy styrofoam cups just to burn them after I'm done...don't want to fill up the landfills, you know. I'm hoping to get winters with lows in the 50's or 60's. I consider it an investment in prime lakefront property on a FRESH water lake.
Amazing, how people won't educate themselves about global warming. One thing about people who can't take in new information, it is because it is too scary for them to deal with. Interestingly, one of the most sheltered areas from global warming encompasses most of the continental United States. How ironic.
I think the north central states are well positioned for this, because it is cooler, and has fresh water.
Gaia has caught a fever, and that will run its course. It has happened before in the history of the earth, and with some unpleasant results. Whatcha gonna do really?
Get a green, strong house. What is going to be very difficult is peak oil. Look crude above $100/barrel and I heard on cnbc several weeks ago, that some futures were trading at $180 and $200/barrel for June this year. Picture that problem.
The key point here isn't necessarily physical reality of the future climate.
It is market sentiment about their expectations for the future.
In that context I decided it made sense to sell the family's currently highly priced waterfront property and buy a larger, lower priced block of land in the hinterland.
The thing that matters the most to housing values is perceived future risk. Global warming and sea level rises are ideas that are entering the market mindset with increasing momentum. A sudden small rise in sea levels could dramatically change the perceived value of flood prone land.
I predict a mad max world before waterworld
Jesus Christ, the Earth IS getting warmer. This is a fact. It's not disputed people -- your own EPA arrived at this conclusion at least a decade ago. There's no longer any debate; even our retard-in-chief Bush admits it.
The only question is: what's causing it?
It's either manmade, naturally occurring, or both. Most scientists -- in fact the overwhelming majority of scientists (again, we're dealing with what we call "facts" here people, not Fox talking points) -- believe, after careful study, that global warming is at least partially manmade.
And no, it's not a conspiracy to get more "funding." Please let that one go. It's embarrassing.
Keith, I'm new to this site, and I think it's great. But I am disappointed with my fellow 'mericans on this one, yet again. This is a country, let me remind you, where about half the people believe in "angels" (awww!) and where the majority of voters put Bush back in office after his miserable first term. America is a great country, no doubt, but it's full of some of the most anti-intellectual, insular, and arrogant people on the planet.
This is a sad truth that I have been slowly coming to terms with over the past three or four years. Americans is dumb.
emmy said...
"Amazing, how people won't educate themselves about global warming..."
idiots....
OK - one more person that reads the mainstream media (and nothing else) and then starts lecturing the rest of us about how ignorant we are?
OK - let's take your premise that Global Warming is caused by the "greenhouse affect" (which has nothing to do with how a green house operates") caused by "greenhouse" gasses.
OK - I'll let you have it up to there. So - in our own atmosphere - what percentage of the green house gasses are man made? Let's see - the fifth most abundant gas found in the lower atmosphere (up to 25Km) is Carbon Dioxide - oh! the boogy man carbon dioxide shows up at number 5! What percent you say? 0.0360%. That's right - the decimal is in the correct spot. Less than 1/3 of 1% is man made. It has increased over 35% in the last 300 years - up from a whopping 1/10th of 1%.
What's the most abundant greenhouse gas? Water. Manmade? No.
What type of temperature fluctuations? 2 degrees. Over how long - 100 years. How accurate are these measurements? Within 2 degrees - give or take?
Has our atmosphere been warmer in the last 1000 years? Why yes it has! Has it been warmer in the last 10,000 years! Most certainly!
Woohoo! Science is fun!
So when are you sheeple going to actually read something besides Time and Newsweek? Why don't you put your noodle to the test and do some real reading before you call the rest of us ignorant? I don't know why you can't - but you can't. We deserve what we get because we are a nation of ignorant sheep because we're too lazy to read anything - instead relying on the opinions of people who have a vested interest. Pathetic.
We live in an age where all of this wonderful knowledge is available a few mouse clicks away - and yet we insist on using what some talking head told us as "knowledge".
Pathetic.
Simple
Rent and if things get bad just move
Next problem?
Blah blah blah.
Regular morons just repeat what everyone else is saying = our planet is warming and its our fault.
Super morons say = our planet is warming but whether its our fault or not is debatable.
So here are my 2 cents (since I consider myself a smarty pants).
Our
Planet
Is
NOT
Warming.
Period.
Some years are hotter and some years are cooler, its called nature.
PS. I am a scientist.
Looks like the majority of HPrs that have been looking for a drop in the price of Gold, don't know crap. Long a strong PMs until every cent of 20 trillion in OTC derivatives is marked as a loss.
Thanks "scientist." Excuse me if I decline to take your word for it.
If you're inclined, take a look at the opening paragraphs of the US Supreme Court's majority opinion in Massachusetts v. EPA, decided not long ago. It goes through the entire history of our understanding of Global Warming (spoiler: the Earth is in fact getting warmer!).
http://www.icta.org/doc/SupCtDecision%20Mass.%20v.%20EPA%2004-02-07.pdf
I'm the Queen of England if the last ignorant poster is a scientist
But if I'm wrong, and he is, then we've got a scoop here on HP
"Scientist comes out against global warming and thousands and thousands of his peers, although he has no scientific argument"
Come on scientist, refute the evidence. Good luck.
Wow, look how mad idiots..said gets. Think, don't feel.
When the earth was last that hot, that's when lots of trees and plant matter grew, fell, deposited into the ground and slowly turned to crude oil, trapping carbon dioxide and slowly the earth cooled. This was 80 to 120 million years ago. We found the oil, used it, and have re-released the CO2 back into the air, now there is warming again. Whose talking 10,000 years ago?
Voila, the carbon cycle.
I've been arguing with friends that their efforts to scare everyone with Global Warming are going to be overshadowed by the Housing Crash. Within a couple of years, people would welcome seeing South Florida's real estate underwater - just to raise average values.
I've warned you all before: Make sure you're deep in a mountain bunker by Dec 21, 2012.
Also make sure you have plenty of water and organic food in the surrounding farm, that should be high above sea level.
I've been investing in that for the last 3 years. Bushco bought theirs in Paraguay already, with plans for an American military base nearby.
You don't want to be anywhere else when the planet shifts.
global warming is a marxist lie and a tool for control, just like evolution
tell people they're glorified monkeys and it's not so bad when you ship them off to gulags to die by the tens of millions.
tell productive people that they're just polluters who destroy the planet and it's not so bad when you shut down their productive enterprises, confiscate their income, and replace independent middle class lives with government handout programs
the vikings were farming sheep and wheat in Greenland until the mini ice age began in the 1400s. Try farming in Greenland now. the present rise in temperature is simply a correction of centuries of global cooling.
relax
Bwahahaha...are you guys only worried about sea levels rising?
Try Earth's shifting its axis of rotation. Once those poles melt and the weight shifts...boom!
Enjoy.
anonopussy said "About 99.9% of scientists say yes. You must be getting your stats from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News?"
Isn't it interesting how these numbers just pop out of the mouth of true believers? Thinking people see through the hype:
http://tinyurl.com/39qvpt
"A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable."
99.9% of scientists - LOL - try again dipshit
keith,
are you aware that a magma bubble occurred millions and millions of years ago?
it was the size of like a quarter of russia.
it errupted for millions of years.
i think the earth will be ok there buddy.
if it can stand millions of mt. st. helens errupting for millions of years. it can stand a few million cars.
us on the other hand? who gives a fuck. it's not like we deserve anything better than what the dinosaurs deserved. we are just descendants from apes.
lol...i love that word deserve. i always think of that scene in "unforgiven".
william money with a gun to little bills head.
little bill: i dont deserve to die like this.
william money: deserve's got nothing to do with it.
BLAM!!!!
damn i love that scene.
"Yes one more person who has never read any of the science and has no comprehension of the issue"
science is about dispelling precedent not establishing it.
I don't believe in global warming but I do believe that the world is overpopulated and man's as pesty as a locust.
And I even think Al Gore showed in his movie that the population explosion correlates well to the rise in temperatures.
but is it C02? or our clearing of forests? draining the wetlands? polluting the oceans? our black roads and parking lots? an increase of solar activity?
"I predict a mad max world before waterworld"
living beings depend on water.
To the idiots that can't see the science for what it is have a much deeper problem than "just getting over the messenger". They have their heads in a not so lovely place to begin with. Hope they buy on the Florida Coast to test their hypothesis and keep listening to Rush! The rest of us are making wise decisions.
I'm on the Island of Montreal, and have been thinking of moving closer to the waterfront.
J'aime beaucoup Montreal and been there many times. I also like the fact that the people doesn't have the same disgusting attitude of the French from France. I enjoy the food at Chez L'Épicier, Le Paris, etc.
Hi Keith,
I am curious how you buy into anthropogenic global warming, when you can see that falsehood behind housing and other financial bubbles.
I believe that global warming evangelists want to either control people (ex communists or losers with control issues) or destroy human civilization and return to some mythical past (environmentalists).
If you think scientists are any more reliable or honest than financial types, I have a bridge to sell you. The sad thing is that science has been corrupted to the same extent and the same reasons as all other fields and professions. If that was not the case how do you explain things such as the rapidly worsening ROI for scientific research. Have you considered that most scientific research today is speculative and data is made to fit the popular model of the day in that field.
Does that not sound familiar to you? Face it, science is over run by weasels to the same extent as all other fields of human activity.
My take is that global warming is occurring but that it is neither a bad thing nor is it man made.
If you look at previous warm periods in history, you see that they are associated with the rise and prosperity of civilizations all over the world. The last time the earth started cooling (1300s) we had the black plague and widespread crop failures, before that we had the fall of roman based civilization in europe (5th century) and so on..
In contrast every time the earth has become warmer things have been better. Remember the first human civilizations started after the last ice age was almost over (11-10k years ago. And the warmest periods in recent history were between 7k and 3k years ago. If we did not have that stable warm weather we might not have had human civilization as we know it.
Think about it for a minute, how can you use computational models to predict a very complex system with chaotic features (climate), when it is hard to predict the interactions of few molecules with each other (BTW that is my area of specialization). Just so that you know the basic mathematical methods used for both are very similar.
In contrast to climate, chemical systems have far fewer components, and they have been experimentally characterized to degrees (an accuracy of better than 1 part in 10,000) that we cannot yet measure for weather/ climate. Even then computational models often fail to reproduce real life measurements of these systems and make false predictions.
and the funny thing is the most 'famous' climatic models do not consider fluctuations in solar output, effect of solar wind on cloud formation. The kicker is that most of these models do not have clouds in them. And they cannot reproduce the climate of the last 50 years with all the known inputs (unless you start changing the numerical value of basic inputs).
Keith said:
‘But if I'm wrong, and he is, then we've got a scoop here on HP
"Scientist comes out against global warming and thousands and thousands of his peers, although he has no scientific argument" ‘
I am a woman scientist. (surprised?)
Your comments should read:
But if I'm wrong, and SHE is, then we've got a scoop here on HP
Scientist comes out against global warming and thousands and thousands of HER peers, although SHE has no scientific argument.
The Russians say it's sunspots not CO2 which is causing the slight warming.
The same Russians who have only oil to hang on too for living, or the same Russians who have POS nuclear submarines that sink all the time?
Or the same Russians who not long ago were driving Ladas?
Who listens to Russians?
Global warming or not, if we screw up this planet we just move to another one. Scientists discover new earth like plantes a dime a dozen. The closest one is only about 100 light years away. That's only a hop, skip and a jump.
Places that are screwed by global warming are:
Clownifornia & the entire southwest. Colorado river dries up, the end. There will be houses under water in Miami in more than one way. Basically all low lying coastal areas are in trouble. Seems the Sahara always benefits from warm periods through much increased rainfall. Now is a good time to get some beach front property on Lake Superior.
Surprising to see so many folks in denial about global warming. Especially that "kc scientist" was funny. Wants to be a scientist but has no basic understanding of statistics, sad, sad.
I'm the Queen of England if the last ignorant poster is a scientist
No Keith, this troll is one of those Bushco troll scientists who gets a paycheck from taxpayers just to be spinning Republican crap on blogs all day.
Keith, you have been in the Republican camp until recently, why are you so interested in science... that is very UNREPUBLICAN of you. Aren't you going to piss off your financially conservative friends? To you, your financially conservative friends appear to be right on deregulation and other monetary issues but on other topics that are non-monetary like global warming. then their I.Q. suddenly drops to "dumber than a box of rocks". Think about this!
It is always wise not to underestimate others - on a blog, in a crowd, or in an electorate. Let me provide some education on the problem of encouraging fear of Anthropogenic Global Warming...
By science's own admission, there are "greenhouse" gasses more plentiful and more potent than the carbon dioxide. One is water vapour and another is gaseous nitrogen. Therefore, one of the HUGE problems facing the Global Warming Fear Mongering Crowd is the fact that 99 percent of the modern fertilizers that have the potential to transform crop yeilds in Africa, feed the world, and make BioDiesel growth possible, on traditional farmland, are GIGANTIC generators of gaseous Nitrogen. In other words, in order to feed the hungry masses in Africa and kick the Gasoline habit, we have to increase Nitrogen emissions which are 200 (count'em 200) times more potent than C02. Uh oh, growing corn with modern fertilizer (which can increase crop yeilds by 6 to 1) causes global warming? Whoops!
A second problem is the fact that Nuclear Power is an excellent alternative power source compared to C02-generating coal (which is a much larger villian than the common automobile).
Read this for some recent scientific evidence of skewed research data
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml
And don't forget to ignore this!..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/11/05/warm-refs.pdf
(or better yet blame it on Exxon/Mobile grants)
Lastly, all of you scientists out there, don't forget to include Milankovitch Cycles in your computer simulations - it turns out that the sun really does impact climate. Who'd a thunk it?
Go ahead pick a fight with me on any of these topics and see if Republicans ignore science.
Lets get past the rhetoric and for the sake of argument assume that global warming is real and it's the result of human activities. OK, now what?
Here is where it gets interesting as the old lefties and lawyers form a curious alliance. Their stated goals are to remediate this terrible crisis and avert catastrophe. But when you look at what they really plan to do, it involves levying taxes and amassing power over others.
Pardon me if I'm a bit skeptical when a gaggle of communists and lawyers tells me they're going to help me make my life better...
Keith it's sad that you've finally realized that the highest, best use of most of your commenters is as meat.
Keith, please stick to something you know (housing) and leave the stock markets and global warming to others. (BTW, have you loaded up on AAPL yet? It'd be funny to watch you lose all the money you made shorting the homebuilders when AAPL returns to $80).
February 20, 2008 10:59 PM
How much more does Keith have to tell you about housing? He has been right for years. It has crashed. What else is there really to say?
As far as global warming & the stock market. Both are crapshoots. It is impossible to predict either one at this point.
Seeing as how his track record is pretty good for predicting, perhaps he should branch out a little. Apparently his European friends are able to discuss things other than the price of real estate, and what color of granite and wood flooring is "in vogue" this month. Or, who are you shorting today?
Or are you one of those waiting for Keith to tell you that it is time to buy now?
I'm all for expanding capacity of our nuclear power plants and even building new plants. It's the only large-scale energy source that produces no greenhouse gasses. In conjunction with wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric power, nuclear power can provide us with enough electricity to no longer need to burn fossil fuels. It can also be used to create electricity to produce hydrogen gas via electrolysis to power automobiles without having to worry about creating C02 in the process.
It's a shame that too many people don't look at the big picture when it comes to nuclear power. Some people can't look at past incidents, which are not issues anymore because of improved safety. Despite slight drawbacks, the advantages of nuclear power vs. the status quo of fossil fuels are tremendous.
Feds: No More Money for Economic Info Web Site
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008 3:18 p.m. EST
The clock is ticking on the economic indicators service run by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Starting March 1, the Web site — www.economicindicators.gov — will be shut down.
A notice on the Web site says the cessation of the service is "due to budgetary constraints.”
According to the notice, anyone interested in accessing report data after March 1 can subscribe to the agency’s free subscription service to have the files emailed or faxed directly to them when they’re released.
"It was a great place to find all the indicators in one spot,” Craig Jennings, a federal fiscal policy analyst with OMB Watch, told the Daytona Beach News-Journal.
I moved to Florida because all the scientists said an ice age was coming back in 1975. Now they tell me Florida will be under was because of global warming.
The earth was warmer 1000 years ago when the Vikings migrated to Greenland. There were no cars and no factories. What gives?
Coastal locations around the world will be vulnerable sooner then later.
After all 5 years ago the IPCC said the arctic would be ice free in the summer after 2050- now it may happen in the next few years!
a mere meter rise in sea levels will cause significant problems for all US coastal regions.
Booming areas of the southwest-will becoming increasingly inferno like after 2010. With less water, Phoenix may have seen its last boom. Ditto for Las Vegas and many parts of Texas and the plains.
The mid west will become hotter with more drought, as will the south.
The problems for coastal locations rise exponentially with each additional meter of sea rise.
IMO. The problem is: people have stopped trying to adapt to their environment. We now think we have to change the environment to be compatible with us - and we have to do it in a politically correct way.
Africa, for instance. Malaria, hunger, AIDS. Do you want to know what the best scientific solution is to these problems? Paved Roads! That's right, we chop down loads of trees and pave the roads in Africa! Then the hospitals, public irrigation and commerce become more accessible - and therefore, more modern. This solution has been well known for decades, but the politically-correct left wants to believe that pavement is synonymous with deforestation. So, if Africa's dirt highways turn to asphault, the continent loses its charm. "No no, we can't have tree chopping and paving going on! Let the poor people slog for miles along muddy dirt roads to the hospital for malaria treatment. It will make me feel better for not clearing trees. Oh, and isn't asphault filled with nasty oil byproducts?"
Here some unvarnished, science-based truth for you all:
Build more nuclear power plants, pave the African roads, and give Ethiopia some greenhouse gas generating, nitrogen spewing modern fertilizers!
Now, go ahead and ignore it because you lean to the left.
Three things Keith.
1. Never doubt human ingenuity. By the time global warming happens, there will be either a new solution to it we haven't thought of; or it will be common to habitat on the moon.
2. Weather is chaotic, and our models are just a guess. Slight changes in climate have many far-reaching unintended consequences....many of which may even be beneficial.
3. Al Gore is an idiot. I used to like your blog until you started backing Obama. Now, you like Gore too?
I've read this blog since it's inception. The housing bubble is now in the MSM, and it's obvious you've run out of things to put on this blog. I think I will be moving on.
Okay, I watch Fox News and am just about as right wing as one can get... but I do believe in global warming.
Everyone has a right to their opinion...in fact they have a right to buy that water front property.
We just left Phoenix after the warmest summer on record (more days over 110 degrees than ever before). Several weeks where the water was shut off to Cave Creek, AZ. Lake Mead is drying up and will become a serious problem in the next 10 years.
Just moved to MN. Worst flooding in years this last fall. Winters are becoming less harsh every year. My landscaper says new plants are starting to be available in this area and that it has changed their business alot in the last 10+ years.
I know, only my opinion. But to those who think global warming isn't happening I have one thing to say...OPEN YOUR EYES!
Don't worry Keith, proof is in the pudding. given another 10 years there won't be any debate. It will be proven.
Small Hat
I did read the science and I was not convinced. Go read the IPCC reports (not Gore's rantings)...the first and second ones...they are both junk science. I have not had the opportunity to read the third but I probably won't since the first two were so laughable.
Here are some serious holes to the GW theory:
1) the hockey stick graph that was put out a number of years ago...which i think you show here...was proved to be fraudulent. the author of the study never provided any of his data and the results could never be checked or duplicated.
2) there is no way to compare temp data obtained from satellites to data obtained through other devices prior to the birth of satellites.
3) in addition to #2, the devices used to measure ground temps today are completely different from the devices used to measure ground temps prior to the digital age. this means that there is a difference in the temp readings of the devices. even similar devices can give different readings. here's something you should do (i did it): go to the store and purchase three different brands of thermometers. use each one on yourself. you will most likely get three different readings!
4) there was really no systematic methodology for measuring temps prior to the hysteria created by the GW alarmists. this means that the data, prior to the use of the systematic methodology, can't be used to compare temps in different time periods.
5) the second IPCC report gives a scant 2 pages to the possibility of solar radiance being a contributor to warming (if indeed it exists). that is amazing to me...the hottest object that's closest to us -- our sun -- is not even considered in the report. all it said is that not enough research had been done on the hottest object in our solar system to make any conclusions about it. that's science? leaving out the hottest source in our solar system? right.
6) another laughable part of the 2nd IPPC report was its spotlight on the difficulty of measuring warming based on problems in data collection. it provides an example of measuring sea temps by collecting buckets of water. some ships that did the collecting used canvas buckets and others used wood buckets. these two materials affect the temp of the water once it's in the bucket. do you see the difficulty of this problem? i hope so.
7) i lived in the boston area for many years. the absolute coldest period we had was about five years ago in january when it was negative 5 to negative 10 degrees every morning for almost three weeks straight. the temp did not get above 15 degrees during the day. i can tell you categorically i had never experienced that kind of cold in my 40+ years living there. tell me, if the earth is warming, how can these record cold spells exist? indeed, just last week International Falls recorded a record cold of minus 40 Fahrenheit! Please explain. i can sight many other examples of extreme cold/snow in recent years that speak against the theory of GW. Another one is the record snowfall boston had in December of 2007. Or the record snowfalls it had five or six years ago where in one winter it broke its all time record with over 100 inches of snow.
8) scientists try to compare temps today using very sophisticated instruments with inferred temps created by reading tree rings and the chemical composition of rocks for periods hundreds and thousands of years ago. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! That's not science, that's grabbing for straws.
9) there really are no reliable records, say, for america prior to the modern era simply because the record does not exist for so many geographic areas. for example, it is impossible to compare the temp of phoenix today to phoenix 100 years ago since it didn't even exist then. this is true for so many locations through the U.S.
10) in addition to all of the above, we also have the silly predications by the GW alarmists that don't turn out to be true: a) tons of hurricanes that never materialized, b) the demise of polar bears, when in fact there are more polar bears today than ever before, etc.. all these predictions are made and then are proven false. and what do the GW alarmists do? they don't apologize or admit they are wrong but go one to promote some other fabricated fact or ridiculous prediction.
I could go on with many more examples of the problems of the THEORY of GW but I think you get the message.
People should use a little critical analysis when listening to the GW alarmists and think about the three reasons these people have come together to foist this theory on the world. they are the following:
1) they seek a global government through the UN. GW is the perfect theory to get them there since it is a crisis of GLOBAL proportions which means it will take a GLOBAL, CENTRALIZED body -- the UN -- to solve it through imposition of laws and policies on the world; and,
2) a lot of money is flowing to researchers to study GW. the more there is to investigate, the more secure they are in their jobs;
3) there are a lot of scientists looking for fame and what better way to get there than to discover some "major" facet about GW and get a Noble for it.
Everyone should look at the GW alarmists with a lot of skepticism. They are not that smart and they are tyrannical in their efforts to make their theory a fact.
My feeling: there is no global warming.
And no, I did not vote for George Bush.
Keith, thanks for allowing me the opportunity to voice my thoughts here.
Cycles? Warming and cooling trends? Sunspots? The bible says the world is only 6000 years old. There are no cycles!
Will O' the Almighty.
Get your facts straight, study the good book, don't Satan nibble on your soul for eternity.
/snark
Snowden
Looks like Keith is trolling his own blog. Casey did stuff like that.
FACT: The Earth has often been hotter than it is now.
FACT: Only a tiny portion of greenhouse gases are man-made.
FACT: CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and only makes up 0.037%
FACT: Water vapor/clouds make up 60% of the greenhouse effect
FACT: The Earth has warmed recently, but not by much
FACT: Dire predictions of doomsday warnings are speculation
FACT: The Earth's climate has never been static and always cooling or warming.
Here's some good quotes:
"The (global warming) alarmists have confused cause and effect. As solar radiation warms the earth, CO2 is released into the atmosphere from the world's oceans."
Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, Head of Space Research, Pulkovo Observatory, St Petersburg, January 2007.
"We have the highest solar activity we have had in 1,000 years. Evidence from ice cores show this happening long in the past."
Professor Henrik Svensmark, climate scientist, The Danish National Space Centre and author, The Chilling Stars: A new theory of climate change.
"Sea levels have been rising steadily since the peak of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago. The total rise since then has been four hundred feet...For the last 5,000 years or so, the rate of rise has been about seven inches per century."
"The Medieval and Roman warmings, with their intervening cold periods, present a huge problem for the advocates of man-made global warming. If the Medieval and Roman occurred warmer than today - without greenhouse gases, what would be so unusual about modern times being warm as well?"
"The temperatures at the North and South Poles are lower now than they were in 1930. The Antarctic Peninsula, the finger of land pointing north towards Argentina (and the equator) has been getting warmer...The other 97 percent of Antarctic has been cooling since the mid-1960s."
S. Fred Singer, George Mason University and Dennis Avery, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute and co-authors Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years.
Whew! There's sure some hot air in here, anyway.
To answer Keith's question, millions of people are likely to be dislocated by global warming, maybe not in 50 years, but this century. When major coastal cities are inundated "a little", the local hydrological cycle can be disrupted. It does not necessarily take 20 feet of water.
Ski chalets? If all hell doesn't break loose, people who don't ski might still want one, just as cabins in the woods are popular.
Global Warming deniers, before you spout another word, please read this
historical account. It addresses many of the questions you raised above in non-technical terms.
As per the 1970's cooling theory, that was basically one guy, and he has, of course, retracted this since then. That theory just got a lot of media attention at the time.
Anthropogenic global warming is now a scientifically proven fact. If you argue the warming is happening naturally, why would we want to do things to aggravate the problem? Or are you all just a bunch of trolls?
Global warming is not seriously disputed much anymore. Here is the bottom line keith. Nothing can be done to prevent it. Even if there were, the biggest danger to man is from global cooling and pollution. One big caldera volcano, or comet, or nuclear war, and we're into a new ice age before you can spit. Even if gas emissions were cut and we all behave global temps will still increase. If you want to fight something, fight something you can win, like pollution, or mercury and sulfur emissions or something. Global warming is here to stay until it isn't.
I think the Keith who started Housing Panic has been kidnapped. First he turns on Ron Paul, now he sounds like any one of the other sheeple. Next he'll be saying the credit bubble was a myth and it's time to load up on some new exotic debt to buy cheap crap we'll never need...
February 20, 2008 10:18 PM<<<
you noticed huh? ha ha,
what was your first clue?
Global warming is just a way to justify a carbon tax that will hit the middle class and poor the hardest. Any emission credits the energy industries are forced to buy will just be passed on to consumers leaving the company’s bottom line untouched. Regardless of regulations people will continue to use oil, coal, and gas until the supply is depleted and a cheaper and more abundant alternative (uranium) takes the fossil fuel market share. If an American uses less oil there will be someone in China or India ready to consume the fuel so the net CO2 emissions will remain the same.
Enjoy paying more for fuel while your job is exported to a country without CO2 caps.
Ok all you deniers...
If the earth is not warming, how do you explain the acceleration in the melting of ALL of the world's ice caps?
I can't wait to read the explanations!
What the hell is that bright thing up in the sky? I wonder if it has any role in changes in our weather, or is the energy we receive from it amazingly fixed over the centuries and eons?
"Scientists" told us that eggs were bad for us, butter, coffee, water from our faucets, power lines, cell phones, sunshine, etc, etc. Makes for great headlines for scaring the unintelligent masses.
So Keith.... BOO!
Now's the time to make a killing buying property in Greenland.
.If you're bent on global warming remember that in the 1970s the rage was "global cooling" - we were all supposed to freeze to death.
It wasn't all the rage among scientists, but rather the popular culture. It's an irrelevant point anyway.
I heard it snowed in Baghdad too, something that had not happened in around 100 years.
Please explain how these fit into the "science".
No, don't place the burden of your education on someone else. What you just described fits with climate change predictions. Look it up.
For every 'scientist' who says it's happening, there's another 'scientist' who says it's not.
Not true. The consensus among the scientific community is that it's happening. For every on who says it's not, there's something like 95 who say it is.
There actually IS global warming on Mars, which would tend to show that the global warming on Earth has nothing to do with humans, but rather more likely something more "universal" like the sun, as others have suggested.
The warming on Mars is compelling, but at the moment and by itself doesn't tend to show anything other than that Mars is warming. The burden is to link Mars' and the Earth's trends to the same source. It sounds like a no-brainer but it's not.
.
Global warming is BULLSHIT!
This current winter is one of the coldest on record
Deep freezes, huge snow accumulations, rains?
Where the F**K is Al (snakeoil) Gore during all this?
It's all political B.S.
.
Novasold eats organ meat. Monkey organ meat. Crotch salamis. She is a real weiner hound.
Anon Feb. 20 9:51 PM-
Don't shoot the messenger, but damn, you could have Googled this yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
Next time, ask for the 1:1 list. You'll win that one. ;)
This is a sad truth that I have been slowly coming to terms with over the past three or four years. Americans is dumb.
--------------------------------
you are just realizing that 50% of the population is at or below average intelligence? I wonder what side of the tracks you are on, sparky. I will save you another 3 or 4 years and clue you in on something: Average intelligence is not very awe inspiring.
Keith -- you call for 'scientist' to refute the evidence but you didn't offer any evidence. In fact, all who called the non-believers idiots and morons offered nothing other than insults.
If you want skiing, come to Steamboat Springs. We have 370+ inches so far and the big snow months are March and April.
And Keith -- have you considered that the warming isn't global? That Europe is melting cuz of all the hot air being spewed by the euro-trash loudmouths? Just asking.
PS. I am a scientist.
That's kinda cute.
Yeah, righ, let The Supreme Court decide if we have GW or not. Statistically, through the last decade, the temperature did not change. Though it doesn't matter - you can't do anything to change it anyway, since you can't control solar activity or Earth's inner core processes... Idiots... I told you, Keith, stay away from what you don't understand.
I leave my car idling to accelerate the warming (if it exists).
Michigan, my home state, will be a huge net winner.
I haven't read all the comments (too many) but here's a thought -
We'll be saved from the global warming nuts because, like a criminal who has gotten away with lots of crimes and gets too bold and is finally caught, the global warming nuts are stretching the truth WAY too far.
Take this headline from last week: "Scientists say global warming is making our food less nutritious."
Normal people see nonsense like that and realize how full of it these pseudo-scientists really are.
Kinda like how Obama will blow it with his pseudo-Jesus persona complete with plants in the audience fake-fainting.
Haha. Keith, broaden your horizons a little a travel to China, where they are currently having blizzards the likes of which have not been seen in over 50 years.
I heard it snowed in Baghdad too, something that had not happened in around 100 years.
Please explain how these fit into the "science".
According to the charlatan scientists who collect six-figure salaries to research this "science," rising temperatures "prove" global warming. Dropping temperatures also "prove" global warming.
This, my friends, is the though pattern of a madman.
Keith and all,
It is a fact that the planet has been getting warmer to record levels when we look at what has been tracked by man over the last hundreds of years.
However there is no certainties (only theories) on what will happen with additional warming in the future... lots of room for error here.
AND there is not enough strong evidence that this warming is CAUSED by mankind activities. Yes there is a correlation between more fossil fuel being burned and temps going up but is not causative just a correlation.
So THE big question is what should we do now? Peak oil will help moderate the fossil fuels (oil) being burned (but watch out b/c there are massive coal reserves in the earth).
Look at the EU policies on capping carbon emissions(I work for a UK company). Actually methane is much, much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 but why are there so many damn cows farting around in Europe still? It's not clear to me that making a cap of CO2 is the best use of our resources. I do think we need to spend more time & resources to find out more about the mechanics of global warming and what we can expect as well as what we can do to influence this (if possible.)
-Big Cheese
Little piece of advice: Don't visit Paris in the summer. I was living there a few years ago and it was horrible. Most buildings have metal roofs, no air-conditioning, and they're so close together that no breeze can make it through. Uh, have I mentioned the lack of deodorant? Oolala!
"Haha. Keith, broaden your horizons a little a travel to China, where they are currently having blizzards the likes of which have not been seen in over 50 years.
I heard it snowed in Baghdad too, something that had not happened in around 100 years.
Please explain how these fit into the "science". "
Oh, it snowed! That proves there is no global warming.
"Amazing, how people won't educate themselves about global warming..."
It floors me that this site rips the MSM for ignoring Ron Paul and effectively defeating him, but when that very same MSM promotes Al Gore's junk science and ignores real scientists just like they did to Ron Paul, that's okay.
Double standard, anyone?
Frank: your facile comments prove that you haven't actually read any of the science you are pretending to argue against.
The only global warming "skeptics" left are paid by the fossil fuels industry. The rest of us are just in denial that things are going to change dramatically, whether because we choose to or because the weather forces us to.
FWIW, I agree that Keith is a pussy for jettisoning Ron Paul before the nomination.
Frank, how much do you get oayed by the GOP and/or Oil industry per post? Are you one of those homeless people the RNC sets up in boiler rooms to post on internet message boards all day long? How many different people post under your ID?
If you want well-cited information about climate change, check out real climate.
Here's what they say about Mars' warming:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192
Here's the 1970s OMG we're entering an Ice Age:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94
Come on Keith, you have to be kidding me. Now you want us to make financial decisions based on global warming (or is it climate change nowadays)? Might as well live your life according to how the start are aligned. It's got about as much scientific merit.
Seriously dude, you need to get the hell out of London. Your brain is turning to mush from watching so much BBC propaganda.
"BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- This winter has been the nation's coldest since 1986-87, as measured by the lowest average temperature, the China Meteorological Administration said on Monday.
Since December, the temperature averaged minus 2 degrees Celsius, 0.3 degree below normal and a record low for the past two decades.
From Jan. 11 to Feb. 14, the temperature averaged minus 7.6 degrees Celsius nationwide, 2.5 degrees below normal, the administration said. "
all global warming is local!
Dunno 'bout Europe. If Greenland melts the cold water might screw up the Gulf Stream.
Brrrrrrrrrrrr..............
"I don't believe in global warming"
Do you "believe" you will fall if you leap off a tall building? But gravity is just a theory!
Some things are not a matter of opinion.
To everyone who says scientists ignore the sun in investigating global warming, I happen to be one of those scientists (Masters degree, but from what I'm seeing here, it doesn't matter).
Back in the 1980's, I worked at the National Center For Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado, in the solar observatory.
At the time, there was an experiment to measure the size of the sun that was shut down (it didn't change over ~10 years).
Here's what one NCAR scientist says about solar variability and climate.
Hint - it's certainly on the list of suspects. NCAR considers "the atmosphere" to be everything from the surface of the Earth to the center of the Sun. O-kay?
p.s. - a great way to steal some money is to spend years as a starving grad student, struggle to get a PhD - only if you are significantly smarter than average - then apply for NSF grants. Because we all know the NSF is a giant conspiracy.
Garbage In, Garbage Out. This article notes major problems in temp data collection. This is true, I am sure, all around the world. The scientists are screwing up!!!
HEAT OF THE MOMENT
Garbage in, garbage out: More bad warming data
Another temperature-monitor station riddled with problems, says meteorologist
Posted: February 20, 2008
9:49 am Eastern
WASHINGTON – A meteorologist performing a comprehensive study of temperature-monitoring stations that provide data about global warming says the official facility at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport is riddled with problems that render it useless to scientists.
But the data collected there is being used nonetheless.
Anthony Watts concludes in his investigation that the station at O'Hare is affected by an urban heat effect that would make temperature readings inaccurate as an indicator of what is actually occurring regionally.
"The community around O'Hare was much smaller during World War II, when the airport was built, than it is now," says Watts. "The area had a significantly less-urban population and lacked the acres of concrete and asphalt that exist there today."
Aircraft parking within 10 feet of temperature sensor at Derby Field in Lovelock, Nev.
The problems at O'Hare are similar to those found by Watts around the country in his study of temperature stations used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration..
What he has found elsewhere are temperature stations with sensors on the roofs of buildings, near air-conditioning exhaust vents, in parking lots near hot automobiles, barbecues, chimneys and on pavement and concrete surfaces – all of which would lead to higher temperature recordings than properly established conditions.
To qualify as a properly maintained temperature station, sensors must be placed in elevated, slatted boxes on flat ground surrounded by a clear surface on a slope of less than 19 degrees with surrounding grass and vegetations ground cover of less than 10 centimeters high. The sensors must be located at least 100 meters from artificial heating or reflecting surfaces, such as buildings, concrete surfaces and parking lots.
Watts' concerns about the temperatures being used to gauge whether global warming is actually taking place began when he read a 1997 study by the U.S. National Research Council that concluded the consistency and quality of temperature stations was "inadequate and deteriorating." Meanwhile, he learned, the U.S. Historical Climatological Network, responsible for maintaining the stations, was doing nothing to address the problems.
So Watts decided to take up the challenge himself. After surveying a few randomly chosen temperature stations and being shocked at the shortcomings, he set forth on a plan to survey all 1,221 stations, taking photographs along the way. With the help of volunteers, Watts has systematically surveyed one-third of the official weather stations.
The vast majority of the stations surveyed to date fail to meet the prescribed standards. Using a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 reflecting proper maintenance and standards and 5 representing facilities that are severely compromised, Watts says 70 percent of those stations surveyed received a 4 or 5 rating, while only 4 percent received a grade of 1.
All of the most egregious violations he has observed in the study would result in artificially higher temperatures being recorded.
Anonymous said...
Ok all you deniers...
If the earth is not warming, how do you explain the acceleration in the melting of ALL of the world's ice caps?
I can't wait to read the explanations!
February 21, 2008 3:33 AM
My 30 year old stepson told us at dinner one night that the melting of the polar ice caps were just doctored satellite images. He states that global warming is just like Neil Armstrong's pictures from the moon, it is all just a movie set for our entertainment.
Do you notice anonymous that not a single poster will give you an explanation?
Idiocracy.
Huh?
Thanks for not posting my comments - I worked an hour on them. I thought maybe it was too long, but I see a couple others that appear to be as long.
We would not want a person verbally attacking a bigoted anonymous poster now, would we? Especially when he is agreeing with you... ;)
I think the Keith who started Housing Panic has been kidnapped. First he turns on Ron Paul, now he sounds like any one of the other sheeple. Next he'll be saying the credit bubble was a myth and it's time to load up on some new exotic debt to buy cheap crap we'll never need...
February 20, 2008 10:18 PM<<<
you noticed huh? ha ha,
what was your first clue?
February 21, 2008 2:50 AM
Haha. Oh, now I get it. I said that the site appeared to be hosted by Hillary now, with the closed-minded, substance-free posts and attacks on anyone with a differing opinion. Maybe that hit a sore spot.
Or was it because I am rational, and while agreeing that some of the points GW are possible, that I am not joining the religion?
Thanks to anonymous @February 21, 2008 1:24 PM for pointing out another story that sounds very similar to one I read maybe 6 months ago, explaining why the reporting was amended and now most of the hottest years over the last 100 were in the 30's, not the 90's. Of course nobody want to take that on, so let us just leave it alone.
And yes, Frank said it too, just in a more concise manner than my rant:
Temperatures up, that is global warming.
Temperatures down, that is global warming caused by man too, don'tcha see? ;)
Yeah, yeah, yeah...I seem ignorant to you. Thanks for deleting the points I made in my previous post. You can allow the hate mongering to continue with one less reader.
It's sad that this blog can be right about so many things and so wrong about others. Check out the latest news: (hint: the sky is not falling, and double hint: the Earth hasn't always been the same temp.!)
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/35266/Global-warming-It-s-the-coldest-winter-in-decades
Dangit my link didn't work...here's a tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/ytzg4n
Here's a few questions for you global warming cultists:
How do you explain the ice age ending? Explain how it was warm enough for cold-blooded dinosaurs to live in what is now Canada. Explain why Greenland was warm enough that the Vikings decided to migrate there. Explain how the ice ages came and went without the burning of fossil fuels. Explain why the earth was so much warming during the Triassic and Jurassic periods than it is today.
Does climate change exist? Of course. The earth has gone through dozens of ice ages and man wasn't even a factor. They've found completely frozen Wooly Mammoths in perfect condition with fresh vegatation in their stomachs. For that to happen, the temperature owuld have had to drop 100 degrees in under 15 minutes. There were huge hurricanes that killed thousands of people 50 and 100 years ago. Now you have idiots like Al Gore and his sheep blaming every hurricane on man. The problem isn't with nature or climate change. It is with stupid people who build on the beaches and expect nature to behave itself.
.
25 years ago we were warned of Acid rain!
If our atmosphere is so bad and polluted,
Where did that go ?
30 years ago, I believe it was TIME magazine had a front cover of, The Coming Global Cooling,
What happened to that?
This is all political and its all about Power, Control, Money!
When Al Gore can live like he does and still tell us how to conserve, or John Edwards, John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Ted Turner......etc, then you know this is a Carnival side show!
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Climate change has been taking place for millions of years. I'm all for making this world a cleaner place for our children but I'm not buying into the propoganda that man is responsible for global warming. And I don't think it should be given all the media attention and proposed funding. There are more importane things to worry in the immediate future but the MSM won't cover those stories. There's significant evidence disproving it; however, the scientific community risks blacklisting if they speak out against it.
To Anonymous 1:56pm:
what the satellites show in the arctic is that the arctic summer melt (which always happens) is just larger than what it has been in the past. since the summer melt has been larger in some recent years (it's not that it's larger each successive year either) it has been taking a longer time to re-freeze in the ensuing winter...but it STILL re-freezes!
the problem with relying on satellite imaging to claim the arctic is melting is that this technology is new, like all uses of satellites to study global warming. satellites have been around only for about 25 years really and the first ones were not studying alleged global warming, i can tell you that.
please broaden your scope of research...do not listen only to gore and the other gw alarmists. there is too much at stake here.
keith, i've posted a couple of comments here today and i have not seen them. i hope you are not censuring them since they are not crazy comments. you've got a great housing blog and i've agreed with you on many things you've said about this crisis; and i've disagreed with others. but that's what makes this blog so good...you get a lot of different opinions.
gw is not fact. plain and simple. there are powerful forces pushing this on humanity for reasons i stated in my first posting. you should give some more consideration to what i, and others, are saying. thanks.
Global warming is fact. Oh, wait, is that too confusing for some of you? "Global warming" does not mean every place on the planet is getting warmer. Y'all understand that, right? I swear, if there's a conspiracy, it's the one the people with their heads buried in... uh, the sand... have fallen victim to in their fervent denial.
It has NOT been determined what is causing it (and maybe it's not happening as fast as has been previously stated) and there doesn't seem to be any single cause. That being said, even if we don't know the cause we can forecast the effect - and this effect is what Keith was speculating about in terms of the housing market. Or does not knowing the causes of global warming mean that it's ok to pretend it isn't happening and that everything will go on as it has been? That mindset seems to offer a lot of comfort to those unable to deal with complexity.
PS - Quoting stories from 30 years ago doesn't change the science today (which, btw, 30 years ago perhaps they saw some of the same things but didn't understand it in a larger context - unlike religion, for example, science doesn't stand still).
I know, I know. Applying common sense can be a difficult chore.
Whoever wrote this post is an idiot.....GW is nothing more than a scam designed to defraud governments and industry by way of creating carbon taxes and therefore redistribute wealth from the first world to the third.
Look it's ManBearPig....!!!!!
The day that the top 1000 companies stop flying their corporate jets, the day that the Vegas Hotels kill the fountains, the day that Disney dries up the above ground level articificial lakes around DisneyWorld and LA stops irrigating the freeways - will be the day I will consider changing my consumptive habits . In the meantime I will consume as much to keep up with the rich that again want a free ride on the backs of the middle and lower class. They are afraid that "their' lifestyle might be in peril.
F!@# em
global warming is a myth, lay off the al gore koolaid
This topic is lame. Not even worth discussing..........move on.
The GW alarmists are so afraid of the truth that they issued a report debunking the prevailing idea today that scientists in the 70's were saying there was global cooling! Amazing. Just a good indication that the GW alarmists are now on the run. In fact, the report they put out says that the scientific consensus in the 70s was global warming! I'm busting a gut right now!!
The authors of the report are GW proponents and influential in this debate. What they don't understand is that a group of scientists (it doesn't matter how many) got people thinking that the globe was cooling. This is a fact. Sound familiar folks? Sound just like today? GW scientists like those who put out this report are the same as the scientists of the 70's who were alarmist about cooling.
And I'm sure they were very selective in the research they did for this report. I don't believe a thing they say. Their science today is junk (having poor methodologies) and I'm sure this research is junk.
You can be sure that when scientists are so alarmed that people don't believe their theory that they are forced to debunk something else that people point to that speaks against them, they are on the run.
Remember: first it was global warming and when the evidence did not stack up they repackaged the problem as Climate Change. Why did they do this? Because the evidence of very cold periods and record cold spells in the present can't be reconciled with GW. So instead, a few years ago they modified the message to Climate Change, which would encompass any type of temp or weather.
In the words of Charlie Brown: Good Grief!
Here's the USA Today link:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-20-global-cooling_N.htm
"Explain how the ice ages came and went without the burning of fossil fuels."
In the world of numbers an "order of magnitude" means multiplying by ten. If you will allow me to generalize to make a point: in the study of nature, it turns out that orders of magnitude in just about everything imply a significant, qualitative transition of some sort. (See the popular book "Powers of Ten").
The time scales involved in natural global warming, whose causes are not mysterious, versus what we are seeing now, differ by not one, but two or three orders of magnitude. Further, in about 30 years, CO2 levels with be three times the natural 100,000-year maxima as discovered from ice core records over the last 800,000 years. I'm not sure the numbers of years, but that's close enough for this discussion.
The point is - just as with housing, which only went up a factor of two or three, not ten - you can't overlook the difference between geologic time and a mere century or so.
That factor of three in CO2 levels quite possibly represents a tipping point which will drive Earth's atmosphere to a new stable point - extreme heat or possibly even extreme cold. BTW we're already a factor of two above the highest natural levels.
Phase transitions usually entail chaotic behavior. I don't know if this is official theory or not, but surely it stands to reason that highly unusual weather, including erratic snow squalls, will result from global warming.
There are answers to all of the above objections, and I think they are not too hard to find. I think there is little point in providing them, as the real problem is the inability to wrap your head around the fact that we are hoisted by our own petard.
Oh, by the way, look up ocean pH.
"n the world of numbers an "order of magnitude" means multiplying by ten. If you will allow me to generalize to make a point"...
You pompous, condescending ass. The climatic shift that made Greenland arable occurred over a few centuries, hardly a "geologic time" frame.
Yes, we're all uneducated rubes compared to enlightened souls like yourself. Right? Well here is a real world example of ordinary people putting the lie to your propaganda. For her fifth grade science fair project, my daughter (now 18) wanted to do a project on sunspots. I suggested she might want to look at using historical data rather than counting the actual numbers of spots over a couple of weeks because the cycle is eleven years. She found records on the web dating back to the 1920s for a location in NY and she entered lots of data into an Excel spreadsheet.
I showed her how to use Excel to run regression analyses on the data and a funny result popped out. There was a very good, 0.84 correlation between the number of sunspots and the average temperature for a given year. I was surprised at that result but over the last few years it has given me more insight into the twisted way global warming believers cobble their climate models. If it doesn't fit in the model, they just ignore it!
Now if an eleven year old can conclude that activity on the sun has considerable influence on average temperatures, why can't these scientists at the IPCC admit as much?
BTW her science fair project was slammed by the three judges and rated below average because she didn't collect original data, and they completely ignored her results. Oh well there's always bean sprouts under a light bulb.
@I've had it said:
What they don't understand is that a group of scientists (it doesn't matter how many) got people thinking that the globe was cooling.
All I know is that if it made it to the cover of Time, then it was pretty much a consensus at that time. You know, like 2.5 years ago when they confirmed "Why we're going gaga over real estate".
@Anonymous February 22, 2008 3:16 AM
While I don't necessarily agree or disagree with your post, let me just say:
THANK YOU!!
That is how you have a sane discussion.
The Earth, on people. ----->
Any questions ?
My parents have a place in Port Charlotte Florida (near Naples) which was built right up against artificial canals. They are currently trying to fix a collapsed seawall. I don't knee-jerk take the broken seawall as a sign of gw-induced flooding, but in the long term, I know that house is going to be underwater. I don't think my parents care because they won't live long enough to see it. But they should realize that while it may be THEIR dream house, it's not going to be passed down from generation to generation.
One thing I have noticed is that most people with a scientific background tend to be negative on the future of the environment; optimistic on the economy but realizing that this global growth will kill our planet.
Those with a business background tend to think that science will find solutions for everything. Unfortunately, the last 2 decades has probably generated more business people than scientists, in the developed world that is!
If you really open your eyes, you will notice that our environment is much worse than it was 15 years ago but most turn a blind eye. One reason for this is NIMBY rules. Thus we don't see much of the destruction because it is happening far away in the developing world. We're bragging about our exotic wood floors but at what cost to our children?
I'm sure the developing world would have a lot to say about this destruction but they are trying to survive and they have no clout anyway. And you will notice that as the developed world ages, things will probably get worse before they get better. Why? Because for a while longer we will be run by people who will not be there when the fit hits the shan. They will be caring about creature comforts, and getting treatment for EVERY little ailment.
Because we are surrounded by manicured lawns, we think that everything is all right.
Anyone who comes out and says that our planet is better off environmentally than it was 15 years ago is deluded and hasn't been around.
I don't need proof of global warming to convincce myself that man is destroying the planet.
Hmmm...
I recently read that canal water levels in Venice are...
exceptionally low.
Keith. Global warming now?
Don't you understand this is being sold to us so we will accept a global "carbon tax"?
The goal is global government. Centralized power. What better way to do that than to collectively pull people together through a perceived shared problem: Global Warming. We must sacrifice to save the planet. Rich countries must pay for the poor. It's a form of control. A form of power. A global tax is one step closer to global government.
Wake the fuck up.
The anti-global-warming "geniuses" on this blog remind me of the pro-war Bush lovers who just didn't get it about Iraq. No matter how many people tried to explain to them that Bush's war plan would result in disaster, that Saddam had no WMDs, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, they just refused to listen. You could keep coming at them with logic and facts, but all they understood was irrational, emotional rah-rah "USA! USA!" bullshit.
I don't waste my time on these troglodytes anymore. It's just a matter of realizing that some people will always be sheep and their sole purpose in life is to be fleeced. Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove figured it out. So did Pat Robertson and Jim Baker, etc. Let these idiots move to Southern CA, Vegas and the SE coast. Figure out a way to profit off of their idiocy and you'll be set for life.
"You pompous, condescending ass. The climatic shift that made Greenland arable occurred over a few centuries, hardly a 'geologic time' frame."
Your ad hominem attack certainly bolsters your confused, incorrect take on things. I think you are in denial - the enormity of what the research tells us is blowing your mind. So you make up some paranoid fantasy that scientists, people of high integrity, are somehow making it all up to steal some money! The funny thing is, there are corrupt scientists - they all work for those paragons of human nobility in big industry (tobacco, oil, weapons, etc).
Well, buddy, I think it is already glaringly obvious, but time will tell.
Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
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