posted 11-28-2014 11:27 PM ET (US)        

We needed a little tune-up on our home heating boiler and it took two weeks to get the service man out because the service agency has been swamped with no-heat emergency calls all month due to record-setting cold weather. We've been wearing sweatpants and fleece jackets in the house for ten days while limping along with the boiler only working at about 50-percent power.

Are we at the onset of a new ice age? When will I see a PBS special about this?

posted 11-29-2014 11:13 AM ET (US)            

There was one "theory" that all this anti-everything green cult would result in an ice cap down to St. Louis. I believe it was based on the same amount of real evidence used in the anti-everything cult prognastications.
But it may prove more accurate!

posted 11-29-2014 12:35 PM ET (US)            

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL00u99IRraJtn38lgAequUjcZR_uFnkdY

posted 11-29-2014 01:08 PM ET (US)            

Foghorn

posted 11-29-2014 06:46 PM ET (US)            

That money is being funneled to the "warming" side.

posted 11-30-2014 10:10 AM ET (US)            

Yup... pretty cool for this time of year...

Dave

posted 11-30-2014 02:45 PM ET (US)            

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south. php

discussing the expanding ice that Jim speaks of in Antarctica.

Some general "climate change" data from NASA:

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

posted 11-30-2014 03:39 PM ET (US)            

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/30/tech/innovation/record-temperatures/index. html?hpt=hp_t2

I guess CNN forgot to include the great lakes.

The data in this article comes from NOAA, the government agency that brings us the national weather service as well as having some involvement in homeland security.... they do some policing and patrol the oceans investigating bad guys that fall outside coast guard law enforcement.

posted 11-30-2014 04:02 PM ET (US)            

You may be interested to find out when your favorite coastal city or beach will be inundated.

posted 12-02-2014 09:52 AM ET (US)            

If climate change skeptics/deniers/conspiracy theorists went to the Sahara on one of the rare days it happens to rain they'd conclude that all those who call it a desert are wrong.

There is a difference between weather and climate.

There is a difference between weather trends over thousands of years and those over hundreds or even decades.

Current climate date going back only a few hundred years show that changes are happening at a faster rate and at higher temperature swings, than in any previous time that we are able to examine (going back about 700,000 years). (Hint for those who say "It's always happened": it's the combination of LEVEL of change and RATE of change that is unprecedented.)

Data trends show a cyclical heating/cooling cycle, but when the next heating cycle comes it's always higher than the previous one.

Science is not about absolutism but about theory, observation and testing of that theory based on data, confirmation by your peers, and continued refinement of theories based on new data. All this work will eventually result in an agreement and a high degree of certainty that the overall theory is correct. If 90% of scientists who study this every day say it's happening, but 10% say it isn't, that's normal for the scientific method. Can the science get more certain? Yes. Will there be current conclusions/theories that are shown to be wrong? Yes. That does not mean that the overall theory (i.e. man made climate change) is wrong.

Sarcasm and ridicule are easy. Doing the essential work of data collection and investigation is difficult. For example, I'd love to see the detailed investigation that shows that all of the world's climate scientists are colluding to defraud governments. (And no, Climategate was not a conspiracy.)

posted 12-02-2014 11:17 AM ET (US)            

As we cross over these obstacles, I often think of the wonderful good luck we have. The water level is just high enough to let us pass. If the water were three-feet lower we could not reach the anchorage.

This water level is not the same water level in the Great Lakes that existed 10,000-years ago. It is just the present water level. The notion that because the water level at this day is at this level it is therefore the PROPER water level escapes me. It is just the water level we have now. It might change--indeed it has changed in the past 40-years, up and down over a range of six or seven feet. But I don't think that there is anything that a government can do, that mankind can do, that legislation can do, to prevent the water level from changing in the future. Man might be able to affect it by a few inches, but not by a huge amount. Just in the past three years the water level has changed by several feet.

posted 12-02-2014 12:21 PM ET (US)            

Credentials? How about real past experience? No doubt these people are academically smart and very passionate about their work. I can respect that a great deal. Experienced? no impossible with are limited time on this earth as humans, but to take on a topic and battle they choose to they need to be experinced in the several millions if not not longer. We need that data its not compeley there yet and probably not going to be for several thousands more. Scientist have made some great strides in just less than a hundred years but let's get serious a hundred years and we now know the entire process of the earths cycle? I think not.

One of the most interesting programs I have ever watched explained how scientist can now reach into the ice remove a singnificant chunk and within that block can tell the earths changes in regards to climate. Their conclusion was that the earth gets really hot and immediately really cool and this cycle continues with some cooler and some hotter then previous changes. This takes several thousands of years though, not over night and certainly not within a few hundred years like AL GORE and company make you believe. There is NO money in thousand and million or years. They need panic now!

posted 12-02-2014 12:24 PM ET (US)            

A library resources class is always helpful too. It can help you authenticate material by researching its source. Look for the original source of the material.

Just because your favorite commentator on TV said it's true doesn't mean it's true... "some people say...." is an example of poorly sourced material. "Stanford University Hopkins Marine Lab released a study...." is more reliable and has a trail of information to trace.

posted 12-05-2014 01:55 PM ET (US)            

I've read that rebound and subsidence resulting from glaciation account for some of the differences on the sea level rise/fall in different locations.

The northern gauges will be affected by rebound, look at Alaska,and Maine as an example. The Chesapeake region to northeastern NC is affected by glacier related subsidence.
The weight of the glaciers to the north pushed the land up, much like squeezing on a tube of toothpaste,with the weight gone the land is subsiding. The Gulf Coast is subsiding for altogether different reasons.

It's an interesting subject, check out the tide gauges around the world, some have been in existence for hundreds of years.

posted 12-05-2014 05:03 PM ET (US)            

In Juneau, Alaska, from a 2007 paper:

"Over the next century, global sea level is projected to
rise 0.3 ft to 3.0 ft. In the City and Borough of Juneau, however, the land surface is rising as a result of the loss of glacial ice (isostatic rebound), and the rate of uplift is greater than the projected rate of global sea level rise. Over the next century, the relative sea level in the CBJ likely will decrease between 1.0 and 3.6 ft."

Also, during a tour in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (50-miles west of Juneau) a few years ago, park rangers made a show of pointing out the old shoreline "up there" where it used to be before the land starting rising (isostatic rebound).

posted 12-07-2014 07:11 PM ET (US)            

In 1793, when Captain Vancouver first charted the area, there was a glacier wall of ice at the entrance to the bay. The strait outside was given the name "Icy Strait".

By the 1860's the glaciers hundreds of feet thick had retreated 50 miles. I was surprised at the rate of climate change occurring at that time, before the Industrial age had spread much beyond Europe. There were no power plants, automobiles, railroads, or Jet aircraft.

JimL