We are doing an awful job educating people
Scientists have done a horrible job educating what climate change is.
In people's mind they can typically only grasp one thing:
Is it warm where I'm at this instant?
If yes -> global warming, oh noes! The sky is falling!!! Buy gold!
If it is snowing -> climate change is a huge hoax aiming to keep America down by strangling industry and businesses.
How did it get so bad? How is so much of the population so ill-informed? Why are scientists thought to be a bunch of evil conspirators?
It is difficult to communicate that climate change at its root is *not* how the thermometer reads in your backyard today or yesterday. It is the change of global climate - rising seawater temperatures yes, but mostly in the increased radiative forcing from greenhouse agents in the atmosphere. This is fancy science-speak (maybe that is the problem technobabble) for things that hold radiative energy. While mostly CO2 is blamed, many other compounds are much worse.
The presence of these molecules act to radiate more heat back onto the planet. This is basic science and is irrefutable. More CO2 in the atmosphere = more heat dumped back on earth. You can do this in any lab to prove it. Since CO2 is in natural equilibrium in the biosphere (plants produce O2 consume CO2, animals consume O2 produce CO2) the extra concentrations 100% come from human activities. The sun has a contribution to climate forcing, but it hasn't changed in the last 50-100 years to account for the excess CO2.
Where the disconnect is how we should perceive the effect. Does it mean we never get snow anymore? Surprisingly to most people just the opposite can be true. The overall higher seawater temperatures increase the rate of uptake into the atmosphere, which means there is more water in the clouds and more severe snow storms, hurricanes, monsoons are likely to occur in some parts of the world and debilitating droughts in others. Not everyone agrees how climate change will affect the earth, but it is not going to mean an immediate end to cold temperatures - forever.
In Ann Arbor and unfortunately everywhere else - every time there is snow on the ground the skeptics point to it and say - climate change is a hoax!!! It irritates me to no end that this is the simplified thinking that unfortunately almost everyone goes through to discredit climate change.
Please help out and educate yourself so you can spread the word that this thing is not a figment of 2000+ scientists imagination.
Start here - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html
In people's mind they can typically only grasp one thing:
Is it warm where I'm at this instant?
If yes -> global warming, oh noes! The sky is falling!!! Buy gold!
If it is snowing -> climate change is a huge hoax aiming to keep America down by strangling industry and businesses.
How did it get so bad? How is so much of the population so ill-informed? Why are scientists thought to be a bunch of evil conspirators?
It is difficult to communicate that climate change at its root is *not* how the thermometer reads in your backyard today or yesterday. It is the change of global climate - rising seawater temperatures yes, but mostly in the increased radiative forcing from greenhouse agents in the atmosphere. This is fancy science-speak (maybe that is the problem technobabble) for things that hold radiative energy. While mostly CO2 is blamed, many other compounds are much worse.
The presence of these molecules act to radiate more heat back onto the planet. This is basic science and is irrefutable. More CO2 in the atmosphere = more heat dumped back on earth. You can do this in any lab to prove it. Since CO2 is in natural equilibrium in the biosphere (plants produce O2 consume CO2, animals consume O2 produce CO2) the extra concentrations 100% come from human activities. The sun has a contribution to climate forcing, but it hasn't changed in the last 50-100 years to account for the excess CO2.
Where the disconnect is how we should perceive the effect. Does it mean we never get snow anymore? Surprisingly to most people just the opposite can be true. The overall higher seawater temperatures increase the rate of uptake into the atmosphere, which means there is more water in the clouds and more severe snow storms, hurricanes, monsoons are likely to occur in some parts of the world and debilitating droughts in others. Not everyone agrees how climate change will affect the earth, but it is not going to mean an immediate end to cold temperatures - forever.
In Ann Arbor and unfortunately everywhere else - every time there is snow on the ground the skeptics point to it and say - climate change is a hoax!!! It irritates me to no end that this is the simplified thinking that unfortunately almost everyone goes through to discredit climate change.
Please help out and educate yourself so you can spread the word that this thing is not a figment of 2000+ scientists imagination.
Start here - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html