Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge this is very interesting

“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot,” according to a Commerce Department report published by the Washington Post.

Writes the Post: “Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers. . . all point to a radical change in climate conditions and . . . unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone . . . Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones . . . while at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”


The above report of runaway Arctic warming is from a Washington Post story published Nov. 2, 1922 and bears an uncanny resemblance to the tales of global warming splattered across the front pages of today's newspapers. It is one of many historical accounts published during the past 140 years describing climate changes and often predicting catastrophic cooling or warming.

Here are excerpts from a few of those accounts, appearing as early as 1870:

"The climate of New-York and the contiguous Atlantic seaboard has long been a study of great interest. We have just experienced a remarkable instance of its peculiarity. The Hudson River, by a singular freak of temperature, has thrown off its icy mantle and opened its waters to navigation.” – New York Times, Jan. 2, 1870

“Is our climate changing? The succession of temperate summers and open winters through several years, culminating last winter in the almost total failure of the ice crop throughout the valley of the Hudson, makes the question pertinent. The older inhabitants tell us that the winters are not as cold now as when they were young, and we have all observed a marked diminution of the average cold even in this last decade.” – New York Times, June 23, 1890

“The question is again being discussed whether recent and long-continued observations do not point to the advent of a second glacial period, when the countries now basking in the fostering warmth of a tropical sun will ultimately give way to the perennial frost and snow of the polar regions.” – New York Times, Feb. 24, 1895

Professor Gregory of Yale University stated that “another world ice-epoch is due.” He was the American representative to the Pan-Pacific Science Congress and warned that North America would disappear as far south as the Great Lakes, and huge parts of Asia and Europe would be “wiped out.” – Chicago Tribune, Aug. 9, 1923

“The discoveries of changes in the sun's heat and southward advance of glaciers in recent years have given rise to the conjectures of the possible advent of a new ice age – Time Magazine, Sept. 10, 1923

Headline: “America in Longest Warm Spell Since 1776; Temperature Line Records a 25-year Rise” – New York Times, March 27, 1933

“America is believed by Weather Bureau scientists to be on the verge of a change of climate, with a return to increasing rains and deeper snows and the colder winters of grandfather's day.” – Associated Press, Dec. 15, 1934

Warming Arctic Climate Melting Glaciers Faster, Raising Ocean Level, Scientist Says – “A mysterious warming of the climate is slowly manifesting itself in the Arctic, engendering a "serious international problem," Dr. Hans Ahlmann, noted Swedish geophysicist, said today. – New York Times, May 30, 1937

“Greenland's polar climate has moderated so consistently that communities of hunters have evolved into fishing villages. Sea mammals, vanishing from the west coast, have been replaced by codfish and other fish species in the area's southern waters.” – New York Times, Aug. 29, 1954

“An analysis of weather records from Little America shows a steady warming of climate over the last half century. The rise in average temperature at the Antarctic outpost has been about five degrees Fahrenheit.” – New York Times, May 31, 1958

“Several thousand scientists of many nations have recently been climbing mountains, digging tunnels in glaciers, journeying to the Antarctic, camping on floating Arctic ice. Their object has been to solve a fascinating riddle: what is happening to the world's ice? – New York Times, Dec. 7, 1958

“After a week of discussions on the causes of climate change, an assembly of specialists from several continents seems to have reached unanimous agreement on only one point: it is getting colder.” – New York Times, Jan. 30, 1961

“Like an outrigger canoe riding before a huge comber, the earth with its inhabitants is caught on the downslope of an immense climatic wave that is plunging us toward another Ice Age.” – Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 1962

“Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two." – New York Times, Feb. 20, 1969

“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half . . . ." – Life magazine, January 1970

“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” – Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day, 1970

"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." – Barry Commoner (Washington University), Earth Day, 1970

Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor, "the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” – Newsweek magazine, Jan. 26, 1970

“The United States and the Soviet Union are mounting large-scale investigations to determine why the Arctic climate is becoming more frigid, why parts of the Arctic sea ice have recently become ominously thicker and whether the extent of that ice cover contributes to the onset of ice ages.” – New York Times, July 18, 1970

“In the next 50 years, fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun's rays that the Earth's average temperature could fall by six degrees. Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age." – Washington Post, July 9, 1971

“It's already getting colder. Some midsummer day, perhaps not too far in the future, a hard, killing frost will sweep down on the wheat fields of Saskatchewan, the Dakotas and the Russian steppes. . . .” – Los Angles Times, Oct. 24, 1971

“An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.” – New York Times, Jan. 5, 1978

“A poll of climate specialists in seven countries has found a consensus that there will be no catastrophic changes in the climate by the end of the century. But the specialists were almost equally divided on whether there would be a warming, a cooling or no change at all.” – New York Times, Feb. 18, 1978

“A global warming trend could bring heat waves, dust-dry farmland and disease, the experts said... Under this scenario, the resort town of Ocean City, Md., will lose 39 feet of shoreline by 2000 and a total of 85 feet within the next 25 years.” – San Jose Mercury News, June 11, 1986

“Global warming could force Americans to build 86 more power plants -- at a cost of $110 billion -- to keep all their air conditioners running 20 years from now, a new study says...Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010, and the drain on power would require the building of 86 new midsize power plants – Associated Press, May 15, 1989

“New York will probably be like Florida 15 years from now.” -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 17, 1989

"[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers . . . The Mexican police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico seeking work as field hands.” – "Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect," Michael Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, 1990.

"It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going to become more frequent, and they're going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we'll go into a permanent El Nino. So instead of having cool water periods for a year or two, we'll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the norm. And you'll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,” according to Dr. Russ Schnell, a scientist doing atmospheric research at Mauna Loa Observatory. – BBC, Nov. 7, 1997

"Scientists are warning that some of the Himalayan glaciers could vanish within ten years because of global warming. A build-up of greenhouse gases is blamed for the meltdown, which could lead to drought and flooding in the region affecting millions of people." -- The Birmingham Post in England, July 26, 1999

“This year (2007) is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998.” – ScienceDaily, Jan. 5, 2007

Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer (2008), report scientists studying the effects of climate change in the field. "We're actually projecting this year that the North Pole may be free of ice for the first time [in history]," David Barber, of the University of Manitoba, told National Geographic News aboard the C.C.G.S. Amundsen, a Canadian research icebreaker. – National Geographic News, June 20, 2008

"So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years. . . Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know . . . We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually." Dr. James Hansen (NASA GISS), The Observer, Feb. 15, 2009.

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Climate change? Yes, there has been plenty of that during the past 140 years.

Posted 16 Hours ago and no replys. I'd say that is a comment.

We are all doomed!

We will all die!

We can not get out alive!

Bluto

Just goes to show you, to sell newpapers or electrons the media will print or broadcast anything some blamed fool will say. Don't believe anything you hear (or read) and only half of what you see.
He11, too many of these dadgummed icons apply!

It changes everyday of the week where I live.... Still get snow in the winter and rain/sun in the summer. Some winters/summers are colder and some warmer. Some have more rain/snow and others more sunny days.

Here's to change

so basically "the sky is falling" and Chicken Little was right all along.
I am a skeptic.

I found it interesting how it went back and forth and about 100 years ago it seems things were as they are now.

Famous Quote: It's going to be hotter next summer, than it has been all year. Al G.

Wow holy monkeys Batman what did it say I quit reading after 2 minutes... I can't handle all that info at ONE time it makes my head hurt!

TL;DR

Nice.

Absolutely!!! There has been no example of record breaking climatic activity on every continent during the year of 2011!! Normal day to day business and record breaking earthquakes from country to country to country is absolutely the norm starting in New Zealand and then hitting us here in northern Japan.

There is a shift in climatic activity. The million dollar question is if this shift is systematic or is the planet beginning a purge. If you ever felt a 9.0, then you would not use the word "normal" when describe the change in climates.

All this just makes me wanna get out and go ride more
But my balls hurt!!

Earth was going around the sun long before we crawled out of the primordial ouze and will still be going around long after we have departed no matter what we do. As George Carlin said in one of his skits maybe the earth really digs all that plastic we are filling it up with and the CO2 that helps to keep it nice and comfy warm.

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With all due sympathy to the Japanese and others who have experienced horrors this year, earth quakes aren't caused by climate.

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That is arguable if the warming of the earth's core has the affect to encouraging plate activity. But that is a sidebar argument as my point was that there has been a dramatic shift in activity during the year of 2011. Are the shifting of the tectonic plates caused by the warming of the earth's core which is something that could be caused by climate shifting or do earthquake's share a responsive relationship to each other? Those studies are being done as we speak and no one has the definitive answer on that but something is going on...when was the last time earthquakes took place on this kind of large scale on America's eastern sea board from Florida all the way up to NY?

The data alone shows the jump in the distribution of major disasters declared in the United States. Like it or not, there was a massive increase in activity in 2011. Was this the sole responsibility of fossil fuels? Most likely not and there are a whole slew of other things going on. To say this is business as usual is just as much as hiding our heads as blaming everything on carbon fuels.

http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema

I think this is very much business as usual. That is not to say it couldn't be catastrophic but I do think it is part of a natural cycle. It could wipe us off the planet but I feel nothing out of the ordinary for the planet. They say the whole crust of the earth has shifted all at once in the distant past and will again. We may be headed to that....or not.

Climate change!!, Of course there is climate change. It was happening before we got here, it'll be happening after we're gone. only difference now is our poxy politicians have figured out a way to tax us on it.

If you subscribe to the idea of the mega continent separating and becoming the ones that we have today. Then you would have to believe that earth quakes are normal even huge ones. although they are very tradgic for the residents of the region in which they occur.
The earths core getting hotter being caused by a few degree increase in air temp. Is like say the trees waving back and forth is causing the wind.
We know that the core heat is a result of pressure. Hotter air temps would cause lower air pressure there by making the load lighter and causing the core to cool off. less pressure less heat.

I'm not a geologist but I think core temp is more from gravitational forces than from air pressure by a very large degree.

Odd that there is no mention of the snow in L.A. in 1961, first time since the early 1800's. And, just a few years ago, Europe had the coldest winter on record. Etc, etc.

...and the Red Sox won TWO World Series.

Some Seismologists think that the next big one is about to happen on this side of the Pacific as it did around 500 years ago. Created a sunami big enough to reach Japan. The Pacific plate has had alot of activity around it for the past couple years. Whether that is weather related I doubt it but it will sure change the mental climate on the west coast.

Forget about global warming! I was watching the Discovery channel once, a show about how glaciers shaped north America during the last ice age. They said historically the earth has an ice age approximately every 13,000 years when ocean currents for unknown reasons reverse themselves and bring frigid temperatures down from the arctic. All of modern civilization as we know it has happened during this last warming period. And the last ice age occurred approximately 13,000 years ago. Yikes!

Yup. Didn't get much mileage from the geology degree I attained all those years ago but a few key observations have been retained. This old rock was tending to itself long before we came into play and will probably continue to do so long after we're gone. There has been evidence of periodic shifts in climatic conditions going back for millions of years. It just happens. It's a bit arrogant to believe that in the 160 or so years since the onset of the industrial revolution and the advent of man-made hydrocarbon pollution that we would be able to terminally impact the biosphere. Should we be cognizant of what we're dumping into the environment? Well hell yes, but short of a total international nuclear disaster I don't think we can do anything that won't be naturally corrected in a reasonable amount of time. The thing that most people fail to realize is that the last few hundred years is but a blip in geologic time, and that really we are quite insignificant in relation to the influences of the sun, the moon and the stars.

I guess the point from my end would be yes, be aware of what we do with our air and our water, but let's also be reasonable.

It's a pretty bright group around this place but I just want to input that a lot of the conclusions being reached are like the blind man touching an elephant and trying to draw conclusions as to what it is. We have some information and an inquisitive mind. We know just enough to...

I have published research, not on any of these topics, but in a field that often elicits a lot of emotion. I would get blistering criticism from people that knew just enough to form what they thought was a knowledgeable opinion. But it really wasn't. It was just a layperson regurgitating disconnected pieces of information and drawing unscientific conclusions. I respect their beliefs and emotions, but I also knew what the science told us.

I'm kinda like that with global climate change. Probably everyone else here is, too. I don't know. I've seen lots of research. I've seen lots of opinions...and politics. At the end of the day I know what the overwhelming consensus is. At the end of the day, I'm a researcher, too. That being said, my opinion will probably have as much effect as the warmth of my own breath.

A lot of things are going to change in the next couple of decades. Civilization won't end. Nobody will agree what happened and, absolutely, they won't agree why.

My hope is that science will one day be viewed without a political lens.

You are wrong sir! The world will have ended by this time next year, the Mayans said so!

Their world ended a long time ago.

well heres my 2 bobs worth. ive listened to a lot of this so called science and i also read all of the original post and in my opinion unless someone in the world is mother nature they will have no idea the only thing i think is right is that yes the earths population is over crowded and famine, disease, earth quakes, floods, fires and all other natural disasters are just the earths way of righting itself and the problem is humans are to busy trying to keep themselves alive for to long . Ive been touched by tragedy, and disease in my life and what i see is if you are meant to live you are meant to live. here in oz we have had in my life and memory years with out rain years with loads of rain, hot years cold years but in the end it basically levels out. as for climate change maybe its true but i reckon all these scientists need to sit down together and listen to each other, because all i hear is conflicting stories. any primary school student knows that evaporations creates rain but scientist that i seen on discovery say its bad ok no evaporation no rain then wee'll have even more severe droughts, what a load of dribble. a bit like my post really anyway thats it

We had famine, drought, earth quakes, fire ,floods, along with all other forms of natural disaster as far back as the writings we have 9 or 10,000 years.