[JimBob (OP)]

If anything proves that it is happening, this does. It is the largest amount of energy over the US I can ever remember seeing since the beginning of weather satellites. When I was a child there were no such thing and the weather was drawn of black and white paper on the TV.

Sputnik was a wet dream in Nikita Khrushchyov's nights.  

This storm is about 800 miles north to south (red olny) and 300 miles wide.

Dude, this is one HUGE storm!


The mind is like a parachute. It works best when open.  -- A. Einstein

[another_someone]

I don't know that anyone questions that global warming is happening, the issue is to what degree does human activity have an impact upon it.

Global temperatures dropped to a minimum in the middle of the 17th century, after having reached a high around the 11th century.  This is a natural cycle, not anything to do with humans.  The only dispute is whether human activity has exaggerated that cycle.

George

[neilep]

That is one humongous portion of storm activity nastiness !!..

The rest of the US looks relatively peaceful. Perhaps the other states have joined forces and ganged up by dumping all their bad weather across those states ?

[MayoFlyFarmer]

heck yeah!  that's the part of the country that banned teaching evolution from school.  AND they all voted for Bush.  They can have that storm!! [}:)]

Are YOUR mice nude? []

[Andrew K Fletcher]

Just a hint of politics with a dollop of mayo and a dash of religion please.

Global warming is here. In the U.K. we have just introduced a hosepipe ban on the Eastern Side of the country. This is during what should be our rainy season.

Now you don't have to be a genius to realise that if the massive ever expanding global deserts are not receiving any rain, and the drylands, scrublands, and marginal semi-dry lands are not in receipt of rainfall, it must be falling somewhere else but in far greater volumes than it has done previously giving rise to flash floods and even huricanes.

Cause of Hose Pipe Ban.

The government in it's infinite wisdom some years back promoted the removal of most of the trees and hedges, with zip regard for environmental impact, let alone all the native critters.

Now, the massive Americanised grain fields are becoming devoid of organic matter to hold the soil together, inducing deserts right here in the U.K.

About ten years ago the rainfall in East Anglia was compared with Jerusalem and guess what it revealed. East Anglia receives half of the annual rain fall that Jerusalem does.

"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
K.I.S. "Keep it simple!"

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Andrew K Fletcher

Global warming is here. In the U.K. we have just introduced a hosepipe ban on the Eastern Side of the country. This is during what should be our rainy season.

I think this is a totally separate issue to global warming.

The government is trying to promote a massive house building program in the South-East of England, so it is no surprise at all that these extra houses are going to consume more water.

That this is currently the rainy season, in a year that has actually started with considerably more rainfall than many of the preceding years (and I believe that some of the rainfall figures that have been released have actually been massaged – I understand that the last set of figures were actually released to the public a little bit early so as to exclude much of the rain we have seen in the early part of this year); but the argument is that the hosepipe ban is pre-emptive to prevent the supply running out during the summer months.  Yes, the supplies are at risk, but they are at risk because of population expansion (i.e. population moving from the wet ragons of the North and West of the country to the dry regions of the South-East of the country).

George

[another_someone]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4880328.stm

quote:
Reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appear to be adding to man-made global warming.
Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth's surface.
Other studies show that increased water vapour in the atmosphere is reinforcing the impact of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists suggest both trends may push temperatures higher than believed.
But they say there is an urgent need for further research, particularly at sea.
Dimming no more
Between the 1950s and 1980s, the amount of solar energy penetrating through the atmosphere to the Earth's surface appeared to be declining, by about 2% per decade.
This trend received some publicity under the term "global dimming".
But in the 1980s, it appears to have reversed, according to two papers published last year in the journal Science.
The decline in Soviet industry and clean air laws in western countries apparently reduced concentrations of aerosols, tiny particles, in the atmosphere.
These aerosols may block solar radiation directly, or help clouds to form which in turn constitute a barrier; or both effects may occur.
The lead researcher on one of those Science papers was Martin Wild from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (IACETH) in Zurich, and this week he has been discussing the implications of those findings at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual meeting in Vienna.

Nobody is suggesting that the removal of global dimming is the only cause of global warming – not least because we also know solar output has increased over the last 400 years; but it does show how complex the issue is, and how as fast as we try and be environmentally friendly in one way, we prove to have unforeseen outcomes in another way.

George

[FuzzyUK]

quote:Originally posted by another_someone

I don't know that anyone questions that global warming is happening, the issue is to what degree does human activity have an impact upon it.

Global temperatures dropped to a minimum in the middle of the 17th century, after having reached a high around the 11th century.  This is a natural cycle, not anything to do with humans.  The only dispute is whether human activity has exaggerated that cycle.

George

Just to throw a spanner in the works, see here this article:
'There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998' (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html)