Mont Blanc Closed Due To Global Warming

[Dru]

globally warmed

[jjd]

Surprising. The Guardian publishing another "sky is falling" story about "global warming." I am very surprised they would publish a story like that.

[Dru]

but hey, britain faces new ice age any time after 2010 i guess this answers P&L's question

[cluck]

AlpineK said:

I'm thinking the magnitude of the events have escaped you Cluck.

 

Certainly climbers getting killed by rockfall is a tragedy, but I don't think the world is coming to an end just because some sensationalistic media outlets publish climatic doomsday articles.

[AlpineK]

Where did you read that the world is comming to the end I didn't read that, but I did read a sad storry about how the Alps are falling apart and we are likely to blame.

 

By the time there's enough proof to satisfy the most conservative of ya, it's going to be a very difficult problem to deal with instead of just a difficult problem.

[wayne]

Werd-Kurt.

I can only hope Mother-N can fix this sizzle before we pay in the billions of people. It doesnt seem like we will.

[sk]

the Mother handles her buiness her way. If she needs to shake us all like fleas, she will. we are temporary.

[cluck]

I once read a story about this guy who speed climbed Rainier in under 4 hours.

 

Journalists purposely manipulate words to get you to feel a certain way. I agree that the global climate is warming and that this will inevitably bring changes. I'll even concede that humans have probably had an effect on this. But I refuse to let it ruin my day.

 

I'm sorry the Alps are changing but I think it's going to snow again this winter, the routes are going to freeze back up, and there will be new first-ascents to be had. Or at the least, Europeans will learn the value of an Alpine start.

[j_b]

cluck, you seem poorly informed. it's not journalists telling us extreme events will be our every day fare, it's the climate scientists. for your benefit (make sure you read it), here is a piece in the independent from the beginning of july.

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=421166

 

Reaping the whirlwind

Extreme weather prompts unprecedented global warming alert

03 July 2003

 

 

In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather, the World Meteorological Organisation signalled last night that the world's weather is going haywire.

 

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change.

 

The unprecedented warning takes its force and significance from the fact that it is not coming from Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, but from an impeccably respected UN organisation that is not given to hyperbole (though environmentalists will seize on it to claim that the direst warnings of climate change are being borne out).

 

The Geneva-based body, to which the weather services of 185 countries contribute, takes the view that events this year in Europe, America and Asia are so remarkable that the world needs to be made aware of it immediately.

 

The extreme weather it documents, such as record high and low temperatures, record rainfall and record storms in different parts of the world, is consistent with predictions of global warming. Supercomputer models show that, as the atmosphere warms, the climate not only becomes hotter but much more unstable. "Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase," the WMO said, giving a striking series of examples.

 

In southern France, record temperatures were recorded in June, rising above 40C in places - temperatures of 5C to 7C above the average.

 

In Switzerland, it was the hottest June in at least 250 years, environmental historians said. In Geneva, since 29 May, daytime temperatures have not fallen below 25C, making it the hottest June recorded.

 

In the United States, there were 562 May tornadoes, which caused 41 deaths. This set a record for any month. The previous record was 399 in June 1992.

 

In India, this year's pre-monsoon heatwave brought peak temperatures of 45C - 2C to 5C above the norm. At least 1,400 people died in India due to the hot weather. In Sri Lanka, heavy rainfall from Tropical Cyclone 01B exacerbated wet conditions, resulting in flooding and landslides and killing at least 300 people. The infrastructure and economy of south-west Sri Lanka was heavily damaged. A reduction of 20-30 per cent is expected in the output of low-grown tea in the next three months.

 

Last month was also the hottest in England and Wales since 1976, with average temperatures of 16C. The WMO said: "These record extreme events (high temperatures, low temperatures and high rainfall amounts and droughts) all go into calculating the monthly and annual averages, which, for temperatures, have been gradually increasing over the past 100 years.

 

"New record extreme events occur every year somewhere in the globe, but in recent years the number of such extremes have been increasing.

 

"According to recent climate-change scientific assessment reports of the joint WMO/United Nations Environmental Programme Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global average surface temperature has increased since 1861. Over the 20th century the increase has been around 0.6C.

 

"New analyses of proxy data for the northern hemisphere indicate that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest in any century during the past 1,000 years."

 

While the trend towards warmer temperatures has been uneven over the past century, the trend since 1976 is roughly three times that for the whole period.

 

Global average land and sea surface temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880. Considering land temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record.

 

It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001.

 

The unstable world of climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the WMO says, it is a reality.

 

 

[AlpineK]

I read the story about the guy on Rainier too. I've also read a thousand stories about global warming and what the National Academy of Science has to say about it.

 

In the short term the only real effect is that the Alps are turning into ugly choss and you better call ahead if you're going on a ski trip to Europe to make sure all the telepherique towers are still standing.

[cluck]

Gotcha. You worry too much, I'll worry too little - it'll average out.

[j_b]

the alps are getting little snow nowadays too. they have to make more and more artificial snow every year, thus draining fresh water supplies. even though there isn't a 500 year record of long term extreme events note the storms, floods, heat waves and droughts that have hit europe and other regions of the world every year in the recent past. many places setting records of high temperature, water high and low over the last 10-15 years.

[Bug]

cluck said:

Gotcha. You worry too much, I'll worry too little - it'll average out.

You picked the perfect avatar for yourself. You know smoking doesn't really hurt you either. Those scientists are all a bunch of media hogs. Light up a fag, guzzle a dozen brews, lay back and watch those muscles grow.

[nolanr]

I wonder if Cluck is at all worried about how badly BC is burning up this summer? But that's north of us, so it's no big deal. It all may be cyclical and there are certainly overstated doomsday predictions, but it has been one hell of a hot and dry summer all over the world and there have been some disastrous consequences.

[cluck]

OK, I get it. Bad shit is happening in the world right now. Maybe more bad shit this year than last year. Maybe even more bad shit next year than this year. Yeah, I think this sucks and I hope those same scientists who wrote the scary reports are working to find a way to make less bad shit happen. So far my attemts at restabilizing the global weather patterns have produced meager results..... but I'll keep trying.

 

I'm amazed at how upset you all are because because I'm not in a panic over this. Seriously, are you all packing your emergency supplies, stockpiling food and hoarding fresh water? I hope I can fend off all the looters. Good think I've been doing all these 16 ounce curls!

[Bug]

cluck said:

OK, I get it. Bad shit is happening in the world right now. Maybe more bad shit this year than last year. Maybe even more bad shit next year than this year. Yeah, I think this sucks and I hope those same scientists who wrote the scary reports are working to find a way to make less bad shit happen. So far my attemts at restabilizing the global weather patterns have produced meager results..... but I'll keep trying.

 

I'm amazed at how upset you all are because because I'm not in a panic over this. Seriously, are you all packing your emergency supplies, stockpiling food and hoarding fresh water? I hope I can fend off all the looters. Good think I've been doing all these 16 ounce curls!

I'm not upset. I just happen to have an opinion about just about everything. Save one of those for me.

[E-rock]

The reason people are upset is because scientists and policy makers have come up with ideas on how to begin handling the situation, and unfortunately the corrupt, greedy petroleum lobby stands in the way.

[AlpineK]

Cluck, where did any of us say we were panicked and packing supplies. huh?

 

What I think a bunch of folks want is more concern and less stalling by doing endless studies on the problem. Voting GW and his old school oil lobby out of office would be a big step in the right direction.

[Dru]

and the consumer choice to drive an suv as a commuter vehicle has nothing to do with it, its all petroleum lobby's fault?

[E-rock]

Dru said:

and the consumer choice to drive an suv as a commuter vehicle has nothing to do with it, its all petroleum lobby's fault?

 

Individuals in the US get REALLY pissed when you point your finger at THEIR personal choices. And then they point the finger back at you.... Example: I've consumed a LOT of petroleum jellie

[Szyjakowski]

Dru said:

and the consumer choice to drive an suv as a commuter vehicle has nothing to do with it, its all petroleum lobby's fault?

yes, those lobbyists force all those soccer mums to buy big american cars!!!!!! of course then more gas is burned and then the GOV will need to confiscate more oil............

[E-rock]

I think the answer is penis-enlargement folks. Big trucks and big guns are all the fault of small penises. Buy a pump fellas, and keep your soccer-mom happy.

[Bug]

AlpineK said:

Cluck, where did any of us say we were panicked and packing supplies. huh?

 

What I think a bunch of folks want is more concern and less stalling by doing endless studies on the problem. Voting GW and his old school oil lobby out of office would be a big step in the right direction.

The patriot act is designed to deal with subversives like you.

[nolanr]

Canucks drive big SUV's too, I saw it w/ my own eyes!

[j_b]

Europe's bizarre harvest mirrors climate-change prediction: New Scientist

 

PARIS (AFP) Aug 20, 2003

Shifting harvests in Europe this year, triggered by extreme but local bouts of rain, heat and drought, eerily foreshadow predictions made last year that warn global warming will reshape European agriculture, New Scientist says.

 

[..]

 

Their forecast, however, was based on a computer modelling of likely CO2 levels in 2050 and was not intended as a prediction for the immediate future.

 

[..]

 

http://www.terradaily.com/2003/030820190255.5p7okm06.html