If the globe is warming up, in certainly isn't happening in my neck of woods here in New England..

Our temps have been averaging below normal for years, and going by the last two summers and winter, I swear we are heading towards an ice age...

I have yet to see a summer stay in the 90's as in years in the past. I can't remember the last time we had a summer that was hot for more than a week!

I try to take a "middle" of the road approach to all of this, because it gets WAY too political which is never good for science :) The planet warms, the planet cools... My guess is that we are in one of the 'warmer' periods of time (and one reason 7 billion of us can exist at once on this planet), i have no doubt one day the ice will come back and most of the northern areas of N. America will once again be covered with a thick sheet, although according to most sources that won't happen for many thousands of years. Between then and now, the only other problem will be volcanic eruptions and sunspot minimums (in the case of cooling).

Weather models are horribly inaccurate very far out in time and the best info for what the future holds is in the past (ice cores, tree rings, mud cores) and most of these show we've gone through long cycles of ice and shorter interglacials. We've also went through periods of near pole to pole tropical conditions :)

This has always been confusing to me..I wish someone really knew the science behind it all..

If the earth was going through a warming period, then wouldn't the whole earth as a whole experience this? Why are their such extremes now?

Our summers are short and not so sweet. Come later and end earlier, and the growing season is short now.
Parts of the globe are cooler than should be, and parts burning up to death, such as the western parts of the states. They are Hot and we are Cold in summer. Our winters are brutal and cold averaging below normal..

Strange...

Mike...

Yes, it IS happening. It just is not happening "overnight" Long term trends have been towards warming, but not on such a massive scale that we are going to see Florida like climates in Canada.

When we thing of global warming, it is more apt to think of "climate change". Climate change does, and is happening, and it does run in cycles. These natural cycles, can, and are, somewhat influenced/ enhanced by man, but really not to a point where we are going to see things like I mentioned above.

That said, the fact remains that the hard data is pointing towards a significant warming trend, worldwide.

Too cold this winter for it to be "warming" you say? Well, I would urge you to look much farther than your own back yard, county, state, or even country. Yes, it has been MUCH colder than average in many parts of the US at times, but averaged out, it has not been drastically colder than usual. Also, all of this bitterly cold air has to come from somewhere right? Well, we need to look no further than the Arctic. The fact is, the Arctic winter has been much much warmer than average, and this has been occurring more often, with greater departures from average. There are some natural reasons for this, but as with anything, it is not all 100% naturally occuring. This year, the North Atlantic Oscillation was VERY VERY strong for the better part of the 1st half of this winter. This blocked the cold air from "circulating" around the top of the planet, and shunted much of the air that normally would stay very far north, down over the continents, especially the North American continent, thus giving us a extremely cold periods. The NAO, and blocking strong high pressure over Greenland also caused the effects of El Nino to be much less than normal on the U.S. Now that the NAO has subsided, and the large blocking high pressure has broken down, we are returning to a more normal patter, and we are now feeling the effects of El Nino, which happens to be very strong this year.

I think it is important to strike a balance here. Take those who are going crazy with global warming and crying that the world is going to "end" as we know it, with a grain of salt. But on by the same token, do not turn a blind eye and dismiss them either, and think that we have absolutely no affect on our planet. There is definitely something to be said for "moderation", and as with anything else in life, this is true with global warming/ climate change.

Just my .02

I really dont think the planet is warming significantly, and although some locations are warmer now than in history, it doesnt mean that it will stay that way. Just 20 years ago many areas experienced there record lows, of all time. the 80s has some of the coldest winters, and so did the early 90s and there were definitely brutal winters earlier in the 20th century. This may be a warming trend now, and maybe in a few years a cooling trend will follow. One thing I now for sure is back in the time of the dinosaurs the ice caps probably had very little ice, and may actually have been thawed out at least through part of the year. Areas as far as 40 latitude MIGHT have even been tropical. Despite that the area near the equator was not much warmer than than it is today and still has lots of life. I think even if global warming was real it wouldnt be the end (It would flood out the coast though).

I dont think it is really possible to gather enough data to state that the entire earth is getting warmer on average, because humans dont inhabit many more remote areas of the planet. i dont believe we are the cause of any of this warming, if the earth is indeed getting warmer. Also we have only been taking accurate weather readings for maybe 50-100 years which isnt even a blink of an eye in human history, let alone the history of the planet.

As palm tree enthusiasts and zone pushers this is a relevant topic. I have been on both sides of the debate.

In the 1980s temps warmed so much and I was surprized/ disappointed when summers fell back to cool to normal in recent years.

It is science, and facts are so clear that its not been warming for years now - that people have been caught changing the numbers to pretend it is getting warmer. Therefore, the weather most of are observeing in different locations across the country does agree with the stats that we "currently" are not warming.

I remember lots of mild weather and would like it back. Our heatwaves in New York City have been sooo weak and short lived the past few years. I remember summers in the 1980s when almost every summer day was close to or reached 90. We broke tons of records.

Studys say that the western coasts of continents would see more of the global warming than cold inner continents or the east coast. And as i live on the west coast where its a borderline freeze free zone as compared to expected freeze free farther south in soucal, It has gotten milder here. Every "great freeze" since the early 70's has been milder than the last..a one way trend hard to ignore- we also have been slowly getting into a slightly wetter spring-as predicted. No serious droughts since the 70's either.
And without a doubt more delicate subtropicals are surviving and thriving now then ever before. I actually know of a small tree sized Ficus benjamina outdoors a few miles from here. Unheard of.

Novaplanguy,

That is exactly what my local weather men are saying about my particular area..Bingo!

Great job explaining..

One can only hope this problem about the "high" off Greenland goes away, for the past few summers, I miss the "Bermuda highs" that use to sit off the New England coast, that always gave us great long lasting hot summers and our spring before then..:-(

Mike

Global warming is nothing more than a money maker for the government. The argument for global warming is so weak that it's pathetic. However, many people are still believing the lie. Our planet goes through natural warming and cooling cycles and there's nothing anyone or anything can do about it.

Well said ... : )

Laura in VB

Believing anything is a lie-because everything changes-
except the truth.

Is Global Warming real? Maybe.

The more interesting question: is global warming a result of human activity? It seems so, but we have only begun to scratch the surface of understanding our impact on the environment. There is not enough data to draw any real conclusions.

The earth's weather patterns take eons to develop. We don't really understand it. What you read is speculation at best.

Enjoy your small time on this planet.

x

We haven't been keeping records long enough to know the real truth, 125 years isn't very long in the grand scheme of things.

I have to laugh when I'm watching the Discovery Channel and they say "***** happened 40,000 years ago". Really? Not 41,000 years ago? LOL

Lots of great stuff in this thread.

Meyermike, I too miss those "Bermuda highs"!!!!

Like I said, there is lots of data to support both sides of the fence, and at times both sides have even fudged or witheld data to further "their cause".

One interesting paper I read basically said that amount of impact we actually have on our atmosphere is so tiny, that we really "cant" impact the cyclical climate changes, and they provided data to support this. The paper is based on the fact that we are in what is called in "interglacial" period, and thus is going for the angle that we may actually be going back into another "mini" ice age.

Bascially, we are not nearly as in control, or powerful as we would like to think we are.

Sure we have environmental impacts, and some of them big, and yes we should do things to change that, but in the end, the impact we are having on the atmosphere and the cyclical climate changes is likely minimal at best.

Below is the link to that paper.

Here is a link that might be useful: Global Warming, A Chilling Perspective

I believe its all fake just make money for the global warming fearmonger. The earth is so old people dont understand that the earth warms and cools. Look what stopped the last ice age, global warming and there was no people to blame for it. And the way I see it is that its still to cold with fossils showing palm trees in the area of chicago I think we still need to warm up some more, just to break even :)

You know when you come to think of all the stuff that could be affecting the globe..Let's see.

Human pollution, deforestation, ozone layer depletion, rockets punching holes into the atmosphere, volcanic plumes of smoke,man made deserts, methane gases released into the atmosphere from arosoul sprays, solar flares, weathern pattern changes, and the possibilty of man being able to control the jet stream for their own purposes, occording to my Army buddy, and yada yada..

I figure if all these problems were thrown at me at once, I might be sick..Maybe the planet is just getting sick and the crazy weather we are getting is the symtoms to several underlying problems..?

As the earth ever been bombarded with so much at once than it is in our time? Maybe there is no one problem to blame, but several..Hummm..Just a thought.

I worry more about a medium sized volcanic eruption. Those things can easily cool the planet. 1992 was a good example. With Pinatubo blowing, the summer here was very cold. Toba or Yellowstone would about wipe out the human population.

On the brink of yet another likely "record-breaking" Blizzard in the mid-Atlantic does not add credibility to the global warming case.

Mankind certainly has some warming impacts, the heat island-effect etc., but just to quote someone here, they rightly noted that one very large volcano can cool the entire planet for a decade.

Whomever is claiming "Studys say that the western coasts of continents would see more of the global warming" please cite your author and date. It sounds a bit made-up and passed along like the whole global warming thing.

Climate may change but truth does not.

Global warming is nothing more than a political tool. Government control/regulation "cap and trade" comes to mind... It's all about trying to convince the population that they must live in poverty in order to "save the planet". The pioneers of the global warming hoax have political motives, not genuine "green" motives. Just look at how they live and travel themselves...

Backdoor attempt at trying to organize a worldwide socialist government by using seemingly good intentions.

The planet will die someday no matter what we do. It is out of our hands. Nothing we insignificant "mankind" are doing can make any significant difference, short of refraining from detonating numerous nuclear bombs or something. Volcanoes, meteor strike, sun runs out of gas, massive earthquakes/continental shifts, etc. It's not IF, it's when... Quit worrying about R-12 Freon, Toyota Prius, etc. They are not even a drop in the bucket. Cash for clunkers cost far more energy and caused more pollution (not to mention MONEY) than they supposedly "saved". What a shame.

Ok I'll quit ranting here but this is my $.02. My intent was not to upset any of those sitting to the left of center or anything. we are all only here for a little while in time, there's nothing we can do with "good intentions" which can change that.

Global warming/climate change cannot be confused with 'weather' which are short term conditions.

People become confused about what long term data show-
for instance in my Connecticut zone 6 location, inland CT the average yearly temperature is up over 3 degrees since 1896 at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

The average winter time temperature is up over 2 degrees since 1970.

I checked out the NOAA weather maps and conditions for the first 3 months of 2010- and they predicted a cooler then normal pattern from about Philadelphia south.

Additionally this is an year with a moderate to strong El-Nino.

From the stats I have read-from the Hadley center for Climate Change/The Union of Concerned Scientists and the IPCC- from 2011-2029 global temperatures will accelerate higher.

The snow and increased precipitation are a combination of El-Nino and from climate change.

Consider this-20 years ago I could not grow Trachycarpus or Sabal Minor in my inland Connecticut locale- even with the plants covered-now I can easily.

The zone 7 line along the CT coastline is creeping about 1.5 north now each year-so in about 20 years I should be a solid zone 7.

In the early 1800s for many decades cold weather in London froze their main river and they would hold a winter fair on it; conversley warming patterns in the Roman Empire permitted grapes to grow in northern Europe in countries like Netherland/Holland. These were natural variations and not man-induced global warming or cooling. PS the rant that this is politics seems more true to me.

Dragon, if you read the opening information in the blog you will see that no one is confusing facts, global warming scientists were caught red-handed lying and changing the numbers. Here we were comparing what we know the past few cold winters with the facts and see there is no major warming yet. Yes we have fluxed temps up since the 1970s but winters recently have returned to being colder. As a palm enthusiast I hope it does not last, however I cannot confuse facts with wishes.

When I can finally wear shorts in the winter, not just on eor two here and there, but in several, and grow palms in backyard without fear of loosing them to these insanely bitter cold winters, then I might believe the the "global" warming thing.

I call it an "area" warming trend, since certain parts of the earth are warmer than others, and I am still freezing my pants off all they up to June at times now..;-).

I agree that the earth has been warming. I don not think it is warming at an alarming rate. I also think that for the most part we are NOT the cause of the warming (but we have man made microclimates like cities). Also I dont think this trend will continue and I think it is possible that we are starting to cool down, at least in some areas. Some people who used to believe in Global warming now suddenly believe in climate change. The only thing true about that is that climate will change over periods of time. The earth isnt set to a single temperature, and there were times in the not to distant past where temperatures were warmer and colder than they are now (like brooklyngreg said). Also now I think some scientists are being accused of "fudging" the weather info to favor Global warming. If they need to lie about data to prove their point, then there is no point to prove. Also scientists wanted to try to cool the earth down and who knows what kind of effects that can have to the tropics. It would take a lot of warmth in the arctic to drown a city or kill a polar bear, but one cold night in the tropics and plant and animal loss would be uncountable. We have less than 30 years of data that supports global warming and that data might not even be accurate or true.

Well said TZ7.

I am heading to SC and FL with my wife by car. Trying to drive a head of the storm.

Hope to find a decent pindo palm to bring home. I'll keep you posted.

Your Palm friend :-)

I purchased my first Butia (Pindo) on eBay a few years ago. Grew it containerized over the years and now want to plant mine in the Spring. I know they're listed as slow but I find them better than that. I bought two more on eBay recently--and they were already decent sizes--have them in ten gallon already and they're growing (in the basement/florescent lights). When I do drive down to Florida, I always hit the nurseries (for things I can't get here). My biggest purchase was a Bismarkia nobilis (everythiing I've read about them says they don't move or transplant well so glad I selected to bring that one back.) Enjoy the trip!

Returned form Florida and I saw Bismarkias and they were stunning, and look sage green with big fan-palms and grow HUGE!

They get really big. Is this the same type I wonder?

There are two forms of Bismarkias, I think you saw the green one. The green one is a dark green color and gets as big and nice as the blue form. Bismarkias are very nice palms. Where did you go in FL? Hope you had a good time!

Good luck!

Thanks for asking.

We were in Cape Coral and the Fort Meyers area. You would laugh that we hit every single HD and Lws looking for the palm sales. LOL, Some of the large cold weather palms were such good buys and we also saw big Pindo Palms for $50 in blue pots. Too much for me to spend in this economy if I want to aford more road trips.

Here's a tip. HD was much more pricey on cold weather palms. The same variety and size palms at Lws were lower priced by up to 60% I would say.

I also bought a blooming 2 ft key-lime tree. There was a 4 foot one for the same price with hardly any blooms. So I purchased the smaller one.