Obama: North Dakota Flooding Is Because Of Global Warming

  •  March 24, 2009

Here in North Dakota, a state where coal and oil are very important, is concerned about cap and trade. For obvious reasons. Obama himself has said that cap and trade could bankrupt the coal industry, and the program (which amounts to a massive tax on the energy industry in general) would result in a significant downturn in fossil fuel production in general. Which would be devastating for the state’s economy.
Now, North Dakota’s Senator Kent Conrad has been working with Obama to sneak cap and trade legislation through Congress. So obviously, he’s under fire for supporting a policy that runs contrary to the interests of his own state.
But here comes Barack Obama to the rescue, saying that the flooding Grand Forks, Fargo and other communities in the Red River valley are facing right now is the result of (drum roll please) global warming!

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama is well aware of the flooding disaster that has struck North Dakota this week and brought it up on his own during this afternoon’s meeting with Forum Communications’ Bismarck Capitol correspondent Janell Cole and five other reporters from around the country.
The president mentioned the flooding during his answer to Cole’s question about North Dakotans’ concerns about how a “cap-and-trade” greenhouse gas reduction policy could hurt the state’s coal and power-generating industries.
He said, “I actually think the science around climate change is real. It is potentially devastating. … If you look at the flooding that’s going on right now in North Dakota, and you say to yourself, ‘If you see an increase of 2 degrees, what does that do, in terms of the situation there,’ that indicates the degree to which we have to take this seriously.”

So stupid.
The flooding in North Dakota is the result of one massive snowfall during what has been one of the longest and coldest winters in almost a decade. We here in North Dakota got a ton of snow. For long stretches of this winter we didn’t see the warm side of zero degrees, let alone the freezing point. So for Obama to suggest that the flooding is thanks to warming is an indication of someone talking about something they know absolutely nothing about.
And you’ve got to love Obama’s response to Cole’s question about valid concerns over what his policies will do to our state’s economy. Essentially, he doesn’t care. He buys into the global warming hype, so who cares what it does to some industries that employ (directly or indirectly) tens of thousands of people.

Tags: , , ,


«
»
  • http://Array Rezistik

    It’s North Dakota, who cares. What is there, like four or five thousand people there.

    That is half the people in my school district….

    There can’t be that many people in north dakota…

  • 2Hotel9

    Rezistik? Global Warming is a lie. You keep repeating that lie. That makes you a liar.

  • Rezistik

    Do you mean the earth has not warmed and cooled for millenia? That is has been both warmer and cooler than it is now? Do you know that during the renaissance that grapes grew 300 miles further north than they can now?

    Is that what your science says?

    Real science based on the geological record, the fossil record, lake bed core samples, ice cores from glaciers, research about sun spots and the maunder minimum says different.

    Google those subjects, do some reading and get back to us.

    Your “science” is superstitious nonsense that has become the psuedo-religion of the left, AKA brainwashing.

    Right climate changes over time. That’s true. Now the climate is warming. We should research the causes and we should just admit that the climate is warming globally, or at least that it is changing. If the causes are man made, or if man is exacerbating the issue then maybe we can work to being cleaner more efficient people.

  • atease

    Yea, and what Greg said.

    Well done. The alarmists are trying to force legislation upon us for something that no one can control. Imagine that. Maybe they can get another trillion dollars through cap and trade to destroy this country.

    atease

  • carrick

    Robert108, did you even read what Sparkie said? Good grief. It was pretty concise, and well worded I thought, and at pretty much a right-angle to how you interpreted it.

    And Greg in Alabama, the problem with that graphic is that weather refers to short-term variations, climate to long-term ones. Saying the Earth is “warming” or “cooling” is not a statement about climate for certain if you are referring to intervals less than say five years (and even then only if you are referring to trends, rather than to extremes of annual variations).

    I like to use 30-year running averages to define climate (roughly 3-periods of the solar cycle), though on geological time scales even that is pretty short.

  • carrick

    Greg, the idea that C4 plant evolution drove the drop in CO2 (and not the other way around) originated with Thune Cerling. The classic paper on this is Cerling, T.E., J.M. Harris, B.J. MacFadden, M.G. Leakey, J. Quade, V. Eisenmann, and J.R. Ehleringer. 1997. Global vegetation change through the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. Nature 389:153-158.

    As far as I know, while it has been disputed, the data in it have never been seriously challenged.

    The other hypothesis–namely that a sudden precipitous drop in CO2 levels drove the evolution of grasses–is left with out an explanation for the origin of that drop in CO2 level.

    Most scientists would consider that to be a major gap (one you could drive a semi-truck through).

  • carrick

    Rob, I don’t include you with the knee-jerk reactionists, but when you politicize an issue like this, especially with such obvious ulterior motivations, then they show up on both sides.

    When the morons making the most noise about global warming start acting like there’s a crisis, I’ll pay attention.

    Actually when they become self-consistent, it will be easier to take them seriously.

    As things stand right now, climate modeling suggests that humans had little net impact on climate change until 1980 (before that the anthropogenic CO2 emissions were nearly compensated for by sulfate emissions). So if you’re going to make a consistent argument about the human impact on global climate, you need to start with 1980, not with 1850 (the point where the Earth left the Little Ice Age).

    And that’s just one of dozens of misuse of facts that the alarmists use to play on peoples emotions…

  • carrick

    WillHuntForFood:

    Right now it looks like you libtards are willing to ruin what’s left of the US industrial base on some vague voodoo that you can’t come close to proving.

    It’s provable that we influence our environment in a measurable way. That I can state definitively (these effects includ CO2 emissions, sulfate emissions, urbanization, and deforestation.)

    The uncertain issues include:

    1) How large is the climate sensitivity to CO2 increases? Current climate models include a hypothetical “water vapor” feedback mechanism that amplifies the climate sensitivity to changes in CO2 concentration. Without this hypothetical mechanism, we would need a quadrupling of CO2 concentration to get an economically significant effect on climate.

    2) How much will the sea levels change for a given increase in temperature? (Actually this isn’t that much in debate. The scientific consensus is “not very much” and “it will take millennia for these effects to fully manifest themselves”…it’s mostly political types who hype the rapid sea change meme, like Al Gore).

    3) What are the effects of warming on health? (Again not really a scientific debate: most air-borne illnesses are spread in cold weather not warm, more people die from cold winters than hot summers, yada yada yada).

    Truthfully we can blame people like James Hansen and Al Gore for poisoning the waters and preventing an honest debate of what is a serious issue. It is something we all should be concerned about, and definitely something that needs further scientific study. Instead it’s a war of political talking points on both sides.

  • carrick

    Rezistik:

    We should research the causes and we should just admit that the climate is warming globally, or at least that it is changing. If the causes are man made, or if man is exacerbating the issue then maybe we can work to being cleaner more efficient people.

    I think that most people here on both sides would agree the climate is changing, and even (hopefully) that we humans are playing a role in this. (The debate should be over how much a role we are playing, and whether this change is good or bad.)

    I agree with you that it needs to be studied, but there is no guarantee that we can reverse or even slow the change in the climate. Nor that the change that is occurring is on aggregate even a “bad thing”.

  • carrick

    Sparkie, I pretty much agree 100% with what you wrote there. Well said.

  • 2Hotel9

    Damn!!!! Checkout the big brain on Greg!!

    Is your point that global climate, troposphere to ionosphere and all that sloshy water, are a vastly complicated and inextricably interconnected system that has, pretty well, defied efforts at computer modeling?

    Cause, being a bitter clinger, I keep looking at that bright ball in the sky. And having stood ’round a fire or two in my time, the thought keeps returning,”Is it getting colder out here?

    Just sayin’.

  • Anthony

    Of course those who want to blame humans ignore the sun. They also ignore a lot of other evidence (historical rise and fall of temperature) that throws doubt upon their Littlel religion. And it is a religion. We have more proof Jesus lived than we do about Global warming, ahh excuse me, climate change.

    Computer models can only take into account evidence that is programmed into them. So I start with a computer model that is programmed to show an increase in temperatures if an increase ion CO2 occurs. Then I tell it CO2 increases and ask for the result. Guess what, the model says temperature increases. When you get to the bottom of it a computer model is just some (group of people’s) idea about how the environment works. Hardly conclusive.

  • Rezistik

    There you have it. Global Warming is what is making it so cold. It never got cold before we got global warming.

    Pseudo-Science. See how it works?

    Strawmen arguments. They only work about half the time.

    It got cold but Global Warming has resulted in colder winters and has increased frequency of natural disasters.

  • carrick

    …and while the authors of the papers etc you found may or may not be aware of Thune’s work (he’s hardly a neophyte or unknown in that field btw), most of them tend to collaborate that CO2 shifts were not the dominant evolutionary force behind the evolution of C4 plants.

    In that sense, the alternative hypothesis that C4 plants followed the shift in CO2 explains absolutely nothing.

  • docdave

    Geez, I don’t know what tangents this discussion has gone but I do know this having lived in that area. THE STREAMS IN THAT AREA FLOOD EVERY SPRING!!!!!! This is especially true in the red river valley which is really the bottom of glacier Lake Agassiz.

  • Billy

    Obama says imagine how worse it would be if it were 2 degrees warmer.

    It would be much, much better! With more melting throughout the winter, the snow wouldn’t have piled up so high. And farther north, there’s be less ice to run into.

    Dumb.

  • robert108

    The fundamental premise of all the global warming mythology is that increased levels of CO2 force the climate to warm, due to increased “greenhouse effect” which traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. If that were true, there could be no cooling trend.
    False premise, false conclusions. GIGO

  • http://www.toadpond.com/ SuperToad

    As long as Earth’s warming and cooling cycles continue to mirror those of the other planets in our solar system — and the [Oh My Gawd] sun — there will be no doubt in my mind as to hollowness of the claims of anthropogenic glowing-bull whore-ming.

    And don’t forget cow farts. [*sigh*]

    Ooops… sorry. How un-PC of me. How could I forget that since the globe has actually cooled over the entire time that Al Gore-ythm has been on the Great Snake Oil Bullshit Tour, “global warming” is no longer the PC term to use. The term is now “climate change”. My bad.

    Some of us older folks still remember the 1970′s. That was when the “Earth-is-good-humans-are-bad” Gaia worshippers and their lackeys in the gummint raised that decade’s hue and cry about … wait for it … GLOBAL COOLING.

    It was about gummint control in the 70′s. It’s about gummint control, now. And if the gummint is trying to expand, you can bet your last un-taxed dollar that there is an asteroid-sized load of bullshit behind it.

    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

    The mere face that we KNOW that data was influenced both at input (sensors placed within mere feet of large building air conditioners) and output (formulae were repeatedly modified, twisted, and morphed until they provided the desired results) tells me all I need to know. IOW, it’s a lie at its very core.

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that we breathe and have some impact on our immediate environment. But if you want to know why our global temperatures change, you MUST:
    1. Consider the source of the hullabaloo (enviro-whackos and gummint).
    2. Look outside the atmosphere (approximately 93 million miles away).

  • Rezistik

    It is due to warming north of you, this warming causes the cold air to move down creating your very cold weather and your floods.

    Science. It works.

  • Mickey

    Excess snow melt from an excess cold winter…duh

    Obama is a dip shit.

  • 2Hotel9

    Little brother! Me and you are on the same page of music.

    This willing ignorance that is the norm for the environazi crowd is fucking comical. As if the Sun does not exist.

  • sayanything-4625

    Basically, Earth undergoes alternating periods of ice ages and warming whenever a continuous continental landmass extends from one polar region to the other while at the same time there exists a large polar continent capable of supporting thick ice accumulations. These conditions existed 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous Period as they do for the Earth today. However for most of geologic history the distribution of the continents across the globe did not satisfy this criteria. Continental drift continually rearranges the continents, moving at rates of only a few centimeters per year.

    We are actually in an ice age climate today. However for the last 10,000 years or so we have enjoyed a warm but temporary interglacial vacation. We know from geological records like ocean sediments and ice cores from permanent glaciers that for at least the last 750,000 years interglacial periods happen at 100,000 year intervals, lasting about 15,000 to 20,000 years before returning to an icehouse climate. We are currently about 18,000 years into Earth’s present interglacial cycle. These cycles have been occurring for at least the last 2-4 million years, although the Earth has been cooling gradually for the last 30 million years.

    What will our climate be like in the future? That is the question scientists are asking and seeking answers to right now. The causes of “global warming” and climate change are today being popularly described in terms of human activities. However, climate change is something that happens constantly on its own. If humans are in fact altering Earth’s climate with our cars, electrical powerplants, and factories these changes must be larger than the natural climate variability in order to be measurable. So far the signal of a discernible human contribution to global climate change has not emerged from this natural variability or background noise.

    Global warming, we have no effect

  • 2Hotel9

    CO2 is not pollution. It is plant food.

  • sayanything-4625

    Is your point that global climate, troposphere to ionosphere and all that sloshy water, are a vastly complicated and inextricably interconnected system that has, pretty well, defied efforts at computer modeling?

    Kind of, my point is that Sunspot cycles, the magnetic field of Earth and the Sun, the speed of solar wind, plate tectonics, vulcanism, the interglacial cycle and about untold countless things we no nothing about effect our climate much more than mankind. CO2 has been up to 12 times higher in concentration during ice ages and lower during periods that are warmer than now. We are in an ice age right now, the Quaternary Ice age, we are just in an interglacial period.

    The other hypothesis–namely that a sudden precipitous drop in CO2 levels drove the evolution of grasses–is left with out an explanation for the origin of that drop in CO2 level.

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/285/5429/876.pdf

    They have found a mechanism. I don’t have enough room show the whole article so I’ll just show the conclusion. (They also talk about Cerling)

    Therefore,we suggest that it was this late Miocene phase of Asian uplift, in conjunction with preexisting
    low pCO2 levels, that caused the critical changes
    in climate patterns that favored C4 plant
    expansion

    Here is another article about C4 plant expansion.

    http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2001/A/200111319.htm

    These guys note that low CO2 concentrations were not enough to force the C4 grasses to evolve. Water and temperature had more of an effect. Notice the grass is not lowering CO2 concentrations, they are low already. The low concentrations caused the grass to have an evolutionary advantages that allowed it to expand.

    The researchers note that the evolution
    of C4 grasses capable of efficient use of lower concentrations of carbon dioxide probably resulted from the gas’s decline in the atmosphere during the last 100 million years. Atmospheric concentrations during the last 15 million years were “sufficiently low to create conditions that generally, but not decisively” favored C4 grasses.

    Large-scale expansion of C4 grasslands, however, was triggered mostly by major changes in precipitation and temperature, they concluded.

    http://www.gu.ekol.lu.se/exta01/6Article_group.pdf

    Here the arthors argue that C4 plant expansion follows lowered CO2 level not drives it.

    They found that grassland of C4 type were predominant during the last glacial maximum. This period had low rainfall, low atmospheric CO2‐levels and lower mean temperature than today. When the glaciers melted, and the temperature, precipitation and CO2‐levels increased the C3 plants expanded. Some thousands of years later the rainfall and CO2‐levels lowered again and a shift back to C4 vegetation took place.

  • http://massbackwards.blogspot.com/ Bruce

    The science IS real.

    It’s the politically and financially-motivated manipulation of the data, the accompanying propaganda blitz, and the legislation resulting from the unholy marriage of the two that’s complete bullshit.

  • sayanything-4625

    Too bad the Earth has not been warming since ‘98. Kind of throws a monkey wrench into their religion, and religion is what it is.

    That’s no problem to some, they’ll just tell you that the warming we have experienced is just the “weather” and not climate change like global warming.

  • carrick

    Greg, the reason that CO2 levels are as low as they are is because of the appearance of C4 grasses (that is they use 4 carbons in one photosynthesis cycle instead of three in C3 plants.. so they store more carbon).

    Indeed the proof that we could dramatically affect our environment is contained in the very texts you use to argue that “it would be unmeasurable”:

    20 million years ago–when C4 plants first made their appearance–the Earth was warmer and we did not have this cycle of glaciation that appeared after CO2 levels dropped in half.

    So if we were to double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere–and nobody doubts we could do this–one likely effect would be that we would no longer have glacial periods, and a north pole that intermittently melted (no change in sea level from that of course). Clearly these are both measurable and economically significant changes (never said the changes had to be bad).

    Secondly, we can already measure regional effects on climate. Even the climate skeptics agree to that: Urban heating is often listed as one reason that current estimates of the global mean temperature may be biased high compared to earlier values (say circa 1900). Deforestation on a large scale affects precipitation patterns, and is, for example, the main reason that Mount Kilimanjaro is losing its snow cap.

    Finally, increases in CO2 concentration influence plant growth (it has a fertilization effect), which certainly would globally affect the Earth’s biosphere.

  • sayanything-4625

    I disagree entirely. Yes we have an effect. The only question is whether that effect can dominate or not.

    I can understand, if you throw a rock into Lake Guntersville, the water level will rise, it will be so small as to be unmeasurable though. I agree we do have some effect, I believe it to be unmeasurable when compared to the effect of the Sun or our own gravitational field. Do I think that a trace gas in our atmosphere, CO2, is going to cause a global catastrophe? No, historically CO2 levels are among the lowest they have ever been.

    http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

    Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12° C (54° F). As shown on the chart below, this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!

    Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!

    Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.

    There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm — about 18 times higher than today.

    The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today– 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.

    To sum up, the early Carboniferous Period had very hot temperatures, median (68F) and CO2 of 1500Pppm, the late Carboniferous period with 350ppm and median temp of (58F) is like our temperature and CO2 level today. It seems to confirm CO2 driven global warming. However, during the Ordovician Period we had a CO2 level of 4400ppm, 12 times higher than today and an ice age. CO2 not a good predictor of warming or cooling.

  • carrick

    Greg:

    The climate changes, we have no effect.

    I disagree entirely. Yes we have an effect. The only question is whether that effect can dominate or not.

  • jimmypop

    The question is, what’s causing it?

    a: the sun

  • Matthew_North_Dakota

    Back on topic. The land is so flat and no trees in North Dakota that it has no where to go. It just blows and blows and piles. When that snow starts to melt, the only place for it to go is the Red River going north. I remember in 97 when it flooded, what a mess!

    Global Warming is not to blame for heavy snow fall this year any more than it was for the flooding in 97. Hell, for the last few years there has been almost NO SNOW in North Dakota,that was blamed on Global Warming. Now all of a sudden it gets a heavy snow year and that is blamed on it also? ooookkkkk…. that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

    I am not a scientist, but even an idiot can look at the past snow fall records up north to see that even few years the snow fall changes from year to year.

    But it is easier to blame it on our less expensive lifestyle. I mean, they wouldnt be able to waste billions of tax payers money without being strung up if they didnt have some disaster to blame it on.

    We are running out of oil, so hurry and start a scare so we can jack the price of gas up to $4.00 a gallon. Coal use is destroying the world, hurry build nuclear power plants so that our kids glow green and the government gets kick backs for the next 100 years, while still charging Joe Taxpayer way higher energy costs to supplement it. It is all a farce, it is all about money, just like invading other countries was, for so called, security. Yeah whatever. If government officials are not working for free, they are crooks.

  • sayanything-4625

    Greg, the reason that CO2 levels are as low as they are is because of the appearance of C4 grasses (that is they use 4 carbons in one photosynthesis cycle instead of three in C3 plants.. so they store more carbon).

    Carrick, I want to make sure I am not misunderstanding your argument. You are saying that the appearance of C4 grasses caused CO2 levels to drop because they use 4 carbons instead of 3, that is they store more carbon causing the CO2 level to drop. I had never heard this before so I did a little research. Most of the evidence I could find point to C4 grass being an adaption to low CO2 levels or other factors and not the cause of low CO2 levels.

    http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/greenhouse-gases-linked-to-evolution-of-c4-grasses_1009676.html

    Researchers noted in their study, many of the C4 grasses evolved after the drop in global carbon dioxide levels 30 million years ago. The authors speculate that while an atmosphere low in carbon dioxide established the basic conditions necessary for C4 evolution, other ecological factors might be at work.

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MiamiImageURL&_imagekey=B6VRT-4RD3F33-1-8&_cdi=6243&_user=10&_check=y&_orig=search&_coverDate=01/08/2008&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlW-zSkWA&md5=e868ec8eb4509c7c2fc7d51489fa50bc&ie;=/sdarticle.pdf

    C4 photosynthesis is an adaptation derived from the
    more common C3 photosynthetic pathway that confers
    a higher productivity under warm temperature
    and low atmospheric CO2 concentration [1, 2]. C4
    evolution has been seen as a consequence of past atmospheric
    CO2 decline, such as the abrupt CO2 fall
    32–25 million years ago (Mya) [3--6].

    Or C4 grasses, being more efficient at high temperatures and low water conditions, evolved the C4 cycle independently of CO2 conditions.

    http://www.palaeobiology.org.uk/projects_05.htm

    New geological evidence suggests that the early success of C4 species occurred against a background of relative constant atmospheric CO2, suggesting that CO2 was not the only trigger for the rise of these plants. In support of this finding, recent experiments suggest that life history and water balance may be as important as photosynthetic rate in mediating the effects of CO2 on plant fitness.

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VRT-4RXCMF4-K&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=619ebbe0e959030f228d825394900f13

    In a recent issue of Current Biology, Christin et al. [1] used a phylogenetic hypothesis of relationships calibrated by fossils to date the origins of C4 lineages in the grass family. The earliest grass lineage to develop C4 photosynthesis was the Chloridoideae subfamily, with an estimated origin of 32.0–25.0 Mya, a time that correlates well with the known shift in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Likelihood modeling of the correlation of these events suggests that the influence of the CO2 change significantly increased the likelihood of the C4 origin [1]. This is the clearest demonstration of the influence of CO2 change on novel adaptations yet and is one of the best examples of historical climatic influence on diversification patterns.

    But what about the other 16–17 origins of C4 in the grass family, or for that matter, the other 30+ origins of C4 across the rest of the angiosperms? To date, none of the other C4 origins appears to correlate as closely with historical atmospheric CO2 change, although the grass lineages Aristida and Arundinelleae overlap with the CO2 change dates (28.8–14.4 and 26.4–7.9 Mya, respectively). The CO2 threshold for selective advantage of C4 occurred between 32 and 25 Mya and C4 lineages (other than the three discussed above) are dated anywhere from 22 to 3 Mya [1] and [9].

    While likelihood modeling of the influence of CO2 change on origins of the other C4 grass lineages suggests that this change might have influenced the likelihood of C4 origins [1], why was there a significant lag between the CO2 change and the origin of C4 in those lineages? CO2 change might have created a general physiological selective advantage, but what was the cumulative suite of conditions that led to the necessary selective advantage to drive these later origins of C4? It has previously been suggested that heat, drought, salinity, disturbance, fire frequency, competition, seasonal rainfall patterns, and/or some combination of these factors might have played a role in selection for C4 photosynthesis [5], [10], [11] and [12]. How can we test the potential influence of these other factors?

  • http://royjacobsen.squarespace.com/ Roy Jacobsen

    Global warming causes unseasonably cold temperatures and record snow storms wherever Al Gore shows up (a.k.a. “the Gore Effect).

    Global warming causes more hurricanes, or fewer hurricanes, whichever we happen to be experiencing in a given summer.

    Global warming causes increased volcanic activity.

    Global warming causes more teenagers to break out in zits.

    Global warming caused your girlfriend to dump you.

    Global warming causes Hollywood to offer up remakes of movies, rather than coming up with some new ideas.

    Global warming makes Baby Jesus cry.

    Name it. Global warming causes it.

    And the beauty of it is that you can spout off whatever drivel you want to, and you don’t have to prove a bloody thing. Because global warming causes people to stop thinking critically.

  • 2Hotel9

    Oh, and breaking those ice dams? Sounds like a good job for the NDANG. 2 or 3 1000lbs GPs well placed would do the job, and give a couple of pilots and a FIST team a nice little workout.

  • robert108

    Science. It works.

    You are using superstition, not science.

  • 2Hotel9

    Too bad the Earth has not been warming since ’98. Kind of throws a monkey wrench into their religion, and religion is what it is.

  • sayanything-4625

    I don’t understand the whole global warming, blame the humans mentality. The sun has been increasing its output by .05 per cent per decade. Scientists say that doesn’t matter unless the increase is over a century or more.

    http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

    A separate recent study of Sun-induced magnetic activity near Earth, going back to 1868, provides compelling evidence that the Sun’s current increase in output goes back more than a century, Willson said.

    Everyone ignores the sun but let a trace atmospheric gas go up (even though it has been up to 12 times higher during an ice age) and that’s the cause of global warming.

  • atease

    Right climate changes over time. That’s true. Now the climate is warming.

    No, now it is cooling. Do some research.

    We should research the causes and we should just admit that the climate is warming globally, or at least that it is changing.

    This planet is rotating at 1,000 MPH, and moving at 67,000 MPH. Do you not think things will change..?

    If the causes are man made, or if man is exacerbating the issue then maybe we can work to being cleaner more efficient people.

    This is where you show your lunacy. 0.036% of our atmosphere is CO2. Life is dependent on CO2. But since you are Mr. Wizard, please explain why Jupiter, Mars also are going though the same cycles we do. They were warming and now they are cooling.

    Oh, and one more thing Mr. Wizard, please explain the the various sun cycles in relation to climate change, and man’s impact on the solar cycle.

    atease

  • docdave

    Everyone ignores the sun

    Everything on this planet, all life, is dependent on the sun. The sun hiccups, our climate changes. Any other agent pales into insignificance. Why people cannot see this boggles my mind.

  • robert108

    Sparkie, in his pose as an intellectual, takes many words to get to a very simple conclusion: If you can’t name an ideal temperature for the Earth’s climate, the entire “global warming as an emergency” meme is bullshit.
    BTW, Sparkie; God didn’t make the Earth to have an ideal temperature, or we would have one. Duh.

  • sayanything-4625

    http://books.google.com/books?id=vhoRdbTrjc8C&pg=RA1-PA298&lpg=RA1-PA298&dq=cerling+and+c4+grass&source=bl&ots=iH8IGB_svV&sig=eMvX0Ug1TQJaDGGqguFSwyfoq-g&hl=en&ei=23_KSaz4B9Wwtge4m4GjAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PRA1-PA299,M1

    (Note, I had to type this in because I couldn’t cut and paste)

    From page 299

    The expansion of C4 grasslands across large parts of the world must have a global driver but the exact causes have remained curiously elusive. Ceriling et. al. (1997) and Ehleringer et. al. (1997) have proposed that plummeting CO2 levels in the Late Miocene, to a level below 500 ppm, favored C4 plant. The hypothesis is based on the known tolerance of C4 plants or lower levels of pCO2. But evidence from marine cores suggests that CO2 level were already low prior to this period (Pagani et al. 1999). This, along with C13 data from fossil ratite eggshells in Namibia that closely track the marine-derived trends in pCO2 for the Miocene has led to a reconsideration of the possible drivers. The emergence and spread of C4 may reside in a combination of tectonic and solar isolation forces that rearranged the earth’s global heat budget, both spatially and seasonally. Resolution of the problem likely requires a good deal of more detailed evidence from the transition period, spread across different regions of Africa and elsewhere.

    I have found tons of evidence that C4 grasses expanded because of low CO2 levels or other factors. I have found zero evidence that CO2 levels were lowered by C4 grasses.

  • http://royjacobsen.squarespace.com/ Roy Jacobsen

    Forgot a couple…

    Global warming causes increased solar activity.

    Global warming causes the temperature on Mars to increase. (Didn’t know they drove SUVs on Mars, did you?)

    Global warming caused the Arctic sea ice (a.k.a. pack ice) to spread and cover the same area as it has in the past. (No stranded polar bears, guys.)

  • sayanything-4625

    honorable mention? i entirely undid any ability to label global warming as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ no matter the facts that come in… and i only get honorable mention?

    And you did it much more succinctly than I, good work.

  • sayanything-5371

    Follow the money to find the Amazing Story behind Global Warming.

    How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government to punish the citizens for living the good life that fossil fuels provide for us?

    Read this link to find out.

    http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

  • sayanything-4625

    Here’s Cerling’s and Ehleringer’s book.

    http://books.google.com/books?id=HVDluoCh-rQC&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222&dq=c4+grass+lowers+co2+level+on+earth&source=bl&ots=4EhSDYsYWh&sig=HncxyGxwBHpOTVO0L_OckI0EL7o&hl=en&ei=GIbKSZ7MJNGEtwejnImeAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPA207,M1

    They conclude that low CO2 levels coupled with high temperatures, low humidity, high salinity and limited water pushed for conditions that would allow C4 photosynthetic plants to evolve. (page 299)

  • sayanything-5371

    If the causes are man made, or if man is exacerbating the issue then maybe we can work to being cleaner more efficient people.

    If? IF?

    You mean you want to spend billions on a cornball cap and trade scheme based on an IF?

    Maybe you should call if Slick Willie and get him to work on a new definition for IF.

    Right now it looks like you libtards are willing to ruin what’s left of the US industrial base on some vague voodoo that you can’t come close to proving.

  • sayanything-5371

    Sparkie, there sure are a lot of IF’s in that there post.

    Maybe you could get Slick Willie to re-define IF, too.

  • sayanything-5371

    Why should we be concerned that the world or the ecosystems are changing if these systems are, by definition, open systems. One can only say that global warming is bad or pollution is wrong if one assumes the world is a closed system gone awry. Sure, we may be contributing to conditions which will kill off lots of humankind, but I don’t see the source of the normative force in such claims as ‘global warming is bad’. Aren’t they assuming the environment is some closed system that is deviating from some optimal, designed, as-it-should-be state. They are slipping in a creator of sorts in order to ground their claims that global warming is normatively bad. There is not such creator on their own view, giving them no ideal state for the world to deviate from, removing the force from the normative claim that global warming is bad.

    Not that this makes a great deal of sense………

  • sayanything-5371

    Strawmen arguments. They only work about half the time.

    Do you mean the earth has not warmed and cooled for millenia? That is has been both warmer and cooler than it is now? Do you know that during the renaissance that grapes grew 300 miles further north than they can now?

    Is that what your science says?

    Real science based on the geological record, the fossil record, lake bed core samples, ice cores from glaciers, research about sun spots and the maunder minimum says different.

    Google those subjects, do some reading and get back to us.

    Your “science” is superstitious nonsense that has become the psuedo-religion of the left, AKA brainwashing.

  • sayanything-5371

    buzz, its over 600,000, all better than you.

    According to census.gov, the 2008 ACS population estimate for North Dakota is 641,481.

  • sayanything-5371

    Global Warming really was invented by Al Gore. This article explains how Al Gore did it. Take 2 minutes to read it.

    http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/38574742.html

  • sayanything-4625

    Greg, the idea that C4 plant evolution drove the drop in CO2 (and not the other way around) originated with Thune Cerling. The classic paper on this is Cerling, T.E., J.M. Harris, B.J. MacFadden, M.G. Leakey, J. Quade, V. Eisenmann, and J.R. Ehleringer. 1997. Global vegetation change through the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. Nature 389:153-158.

    Here is the abstract from the study.

    Between 8 and 6 million years ago, there was a global increase in the biomass of plants using C4 photosynthesis as indicated by changes in the carbon isotope ratios of fossil tooth enamel in Asia, Africa, North America and South America. This abrupt and widespread increase in C4 biomass may be related to a decrease in atmospheric CO2 concentrations below a threshold that favoured C3-photosynthesizing plants. The change occurred earlier at lower latitudes, as the threshold for C3 photosynthesis is higher at warmer temperatures.

    I read that as low CO2 may have caused C4 plants to become widespread because it gave them an evolutionary advantage. Not that C4 plants lowered CO2.

  • sayanything-5371

    It is due to warming north of you, this warming causes the cold air to move down creating your very cold weather

    There you have it. Global Warming is what is making it so cold. It never got cold before we got global warming.

    Pseudo-Science. See how it works?

  • Rezistik

    We only let the cool people live here.

    Explains the cold winter.

  • sayanything-4625

    The Globe is in fact cooling.

    http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/proceedings.html

    http://www.heartland.org/events/NewYork09/PDFs/NY09Program.pdf

    The second International Conference on Climate Change concluded its 2-1/2 -day run March 10, 2009 in New York City after confronting the theme, “Global warming: Was it ever really a crisis?”

    The answer was a resounding, No…More than 75 papers and keynote addresses were presented by some of the world’s leading climatologists, economists, policy makers, and opinion leaders. Y

    The Hadley Centre for Climate Change, part of the UK Met Office, tracks global temperature and shows a big drop in global temperature anomalies since January 2007. Based on the HadCRUT3 system of observed temperatures, global surface temperature anomalies have been trending down since 2001. January 2008 had the coldest anomaly since 1995.

    Why?

    Dr. Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations has found seven different types of recurring gravitational cycles ranging from the very warm 460,000 year cycle down to a 230 year recurring global warming cycle. All of the gravitational cycles coincide nearly 100 percent with 2200 global warming events during the past half million years. This includes the earth’s current warming cycle which began around the year 1900, and the first stage of global cooling that will begin during 2008 and 2009.

    The gravitational cycles are called the Primary Forcing Mechanism for Climate (PFM), and act like a magnet by pulling the atmosphere’s high pressure systems northward or southward by as much as 3 or 4 degrees of latitude from their normal seasonal positions, and thus causing long-term shifts in the location of atmospheric high pressure systems.

    The shifts of nearly 3 degrees of latitude, or approximately 290 kilometers (180 miles) results in an overall change in the atmospheric circulation in such a manner to cause the climate to migrate northward during global warming cycles and allow some melting of high latitude snow and ice packs, and a rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through a very complex natural feedback system.

    Here is what they predict…

    Research by Mr. Dilley shows a near 100 percent correlation between the PFM gravitational cycles to the beginning and ending of global warming cycles. Global warming cycles began right on time with each PFM cycle during the past half million years, as did the current warming which began 100 years ago, and it will end right on time as the current gravitational cycle begins its cyclical decline.

    Global temperatures have cooled during the past 12 months. During 2008 and 2009 the first stage of global cooling will cool the world’s temperatures to those observed during the years from the 1940s through the 1970s. By the year 2023 global climate will become similar to the colder temperatures experienced during the 1800s.

    Or if you don’t believe that…

    http://icecap.us/images/uploads/FORECASTING_SOLAR_CYCLE.pdf

    Theodore Landscheidt in New Ice Age Instead of Global Warming warned the decline could continue in solar activity until a Maunder Minimum like level was reached about 2030.
    The Russians appear to agree. Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Russian Academy of Science said he and his colleagues had concluded that a period of global cooling similar to one seen in the late 17th century – when canals froze in the Netherlands and people had to leave their dwellings in Greenland – could start in 2012-2015 and reach its peak in 2055-2060.
    The late Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University had found with the help of NASA and the JPL, every 179 years or so, the sun embarks on a new cycle of orbits. One of the cooler periods in recent centuries was the Little Ice Age of the 17th century, when the Thames River in London froze over each winter. The next cool period, if the pattern
    holds, began in 1996, with the effects to be felt starting in 2010. Some predict three decades of severe cold. See recent story on Rhodes’s findings also here.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/17/beryllium-10-and-climate/

    All the major climate minima are evident in the Be10 record, and the cold period at the end of the 19th century. This graph alone demonstrates that the warming of the 20th century was solar-driven.

    The end of the Little Ice Age corresponded with a dramatic decrease in the rate of production of Be10, due to fewer galactic cosmic rays getting into the inner planets of the solar system. Fewer galactic cosmic rays got into the inner planets because the solar wind got stronger. The solar wind got stronger because the Sun’s magnetic field got stronger, as measured by the aa Index from 1868.

    The climate changes, we have no effect.

  • Buzz

    It’s North Dakota, who cares. What is there, like four or five thousand people there.

  • 2Hotel9

    And more good news!!!

    Hey, MND? You got a mouse in your pocket,”We are running out of oil,” or what?

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/sparkiearbuckle sayanything-81

    WillHuntForFood

    THe argument I am running looks like this:
    1) If one wants to claim that global warming is bad, one must have some means of grounding the normative claim that global warming is normatively bad or undesirable.
    2) If the world is a closed system intended to run in some ideal state, then there is an ideal that can provide a normative baseline for judging the current state of the world.
    3) We can get an ideal state if there is someone who designed the world or some purpose it is suppose to deploy.
    4) But we can get no ideal state (as atheist ec0-freaks — the god answer is not open), the world is an open system (not closed), and we know that the world adapts to change and has many mechanisms by which it adapts (making regret and reminiscence of prior states an inappropriate normative baseline).
    —————————————————————————————–
    C) Therefore we cannot ground the normative claim that global warming is bad.

    One could also pursue the old ‘you cannot get an OUGHT from an IS’ argument.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/sparkiearbuckle sayanything-81

    r108
    i am simply pointing out that the world is an open system and, as of yet, we have no normative ideal from which it can be said to deviate in a normatively valanced manner — whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
    if we use your implicit assumption — that the ideal is real — then whatever is happening is good. its all good, so-to-speak. but you are still begging the question because your normative baseline has no empirical or derivatively-empirical ground. In short, it ain’t scientific to claim ‘its all good’. You are still employing what is referred to as a ‘thick descriptor’ term. this is when empirical observation takes on unwarranted normative valence. it ain’t science.

    Sparkie, I pretty much agree 100% with what you wrote there. Well said.

    I was caught the other day, by a segment I heard on NPR. They were discussing ‘decoupling’ in the context of global warming to describe the process by which the flowering of certain flowers and the appearance of the bugs that feed on them are knocked askew. Because some organisms are light sensitive, some are heat sensitive, some magnetically sensitive, and so on… previous aligned occurrences can happen apart from each other when the springs are warmer, for example. Their use of ‘decoupling’ in this context amounted to a negative ‘thick descriptor’ as I have defined ‘thick descriptor’ above. If the world was a closed system, or if there was some previous state that was more desirable or more natural (by some scientific measure), then the use of ‘decoupling’ as a negative ‘thick descriptor’ is warranted. If we have no normative ground, we should not treat ‘decoupling’ as a negative ‘thick descriptor’. It was a function of context, but the rhetorical effect is deceiving. Its amazing to think that one could use the same term, in a different context, and not sneak in any normatively charged vocab… but no. It was problematic, IMHO.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    t is due to warming north of you, this warming causes the cold air to move down creating your very cold weather and your floods.

    The Red River runs south to north, genius.

    Try knowing what you’re talking about.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/sparkiearbuckle sayanything-81

    Greg
    The implicit premise that humans can be isolated and their influence on ‘nature’ gaged is a flawed premise out of the gate, IMHO. I wouldn’t be able to argue why without using a lot of jargon and rambling a bit, but I am suspect of it in virtue of my view of ‘nature’ as being broad enough to encompass us and causally complex enough to evade the possibility of being appropriately modeled with our facile contemporary pop-scientific ontologies.

  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com/ sayanything-4808

    Thank you Greg. You get a gold star. Silver goes to Carrick. Honorable mention to Sparkie.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/sparkiearbuckle sayanything-81

    suitepotato
    honorable mention? i entirely undid any ability to label global warming as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ no matter the facts that come in… and i only get honorable mention?

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    Instead it’s a war of political talking points on both sides.

    I don’t know that it’s that bad. I think boils down to a war between people who want to leverage fear and hysteria for personal gain (power, money, etc.) and those who need more proof than said fear and hysteria.

    Of course, there are knee-jerk idiots on both sides, but that’s how I see it.

    When the morons making the most noise about global warming start acting like there’s a crisis, I’ll pay attention.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    I admit that the globe is warming. I don’t know many on my side of the debate who don’t readily admit that.

    The question is, what’s causing it? Because the globe has been warming and cooling for eons. Well before mankind and coal power plants and humvees.

    And most of the public policy aimed at stemming “climate change” (of course the climate is changing, morons) is more about taking advantage of the hysteria for the sake of expanding the size and power of government.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    I notice you’re conveniently ignoring your mistake blaming global warming in Canada for flooding in the Red River valley in North Dakota.

    Be honest. You didn’t know what you were talking about, did you?

  • http://suitepotato.blogspot.com/ sayanything-4808

    Sparkie, you didn’t pound books as much as Greg but you did manage a linguistic/intellectual gem (I’m a former programmer and obfuscated compaction with consistency is always fun). Okay, that and the Canned Heat vid get a silver star too (partly the music and partly old Hefner footage is a trip).

    If anyone doesn’t get why the global warming thing is hot, it’s because of the way we are. We’ve become insecure, self-defeated, not really connected with the idea that actions have consequences and not in a crime punishment way but do something and have a reasonable expectation of it meaning anything way.

    We tend to care way too much what others think. We spend lots of time trying to be important to others, thought well of by others, even if we hate ourselves…

    So the idea however stupid and wrong, and actually especially because it is stupid and wrong, that we’re the center of things and can have an effect on the world… that’s an easy sell to people. Blame humans? They already have guilty consciences. Now it is fashionable to acknowledge it in an evasive meaningless way by spreading one’s guilt to everyone. Now we’re all destroying the world. And we, that is us as individuals, can do something about it.

    Of course we can’t and never could and it doesn’t matter because actually doing anything wasn’t the point. Feeling like we could for a moment was the point. Releasing the pressure cooker of conscience and guilt for a minute was the point. We got to feel something for a minute. We’ll move on to other empty gestures to bide our time on the way to the inevitable grave. (Yet these people can look at their own newly born children and not marvel at the act of creation in a lasting way they keep hold of.*)

    Meanwhile, the manipulative will be using this as all the other crises we invent for ourselves to slowly make things worse and they are another bunch of headcases so, not like anyone is going to deal with straightening that bunch out when we’re busy doing pop-psych placebos for ourselves.

    *I call this the static leveling. The graying out of society’s mental functions into a sort of barely perturbed hard to get focus from soup something like the static on a tv channel without a signal. At the far end, it makes one live their life without making an indentation on it and they pass from birth to death as if they were never here and during their time, manage to overall stay superficial and meaningless to themselves. It’s a consequence of close quarters high population societies without more basic environmental pressures for extended periods. The human mind needs to process so much, it will invent things to process and without a proper medium in which their memes can grow, they peter out like trying to count the ripples from a stone thrown into a pond during a rainstorm.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/sparkiearbuckle sayanything-81

    Why should we be concerned that the world or the ecosystems are changing if these systems are, by definition, open systems. One can only say that global warming is bad or pollution is wrong if one assumes the world is a closed system gone awry. Sure, we may be contributing to conditions which will kill off lots of humankind, but I don’t see the source of the normative force in such claims as ‘global warming is bad’. Aren’t they assuming the environment is some closed system that is deviating from some optimal, designed, as-it-should-be state. They are slipping in a creator of sorts in order to ground their claims that global warming is normatively bad. There is not such creator on their own view, giving them no ideal state for the world to deviate from, removing the force from the normative claim that global warming is bad.

    Or so I see it.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    There can’t be that many people in north dakota…

    We only let the cool people live here.

  • Reneeread

    Climate changes causes also causes record snowfalls

    • Anonymous

      It also is why Greenland is named Greenland and why extinct animals are found whole under blocks of ice.  Your point?  Mine?  Geological data, you know, the science that looks at data from thousands if not millions of years ago, shows the earth has been much cooler and it has been much hotter.  So, you’d rather opine using data from a couple of decades (You know, like a journalist giving just the part of the story they want you to hear to make their point although it really isn’t the whole story…think USDA story and Barrack Obama.  Think the beer summit as well.) and regurgitate liberal rhetoric about the climate data that was proven to be severely skewed (totally lied about) rather than think for yourself.  You need to take a one way trip to the sun.  Take a few of your greenies with you.

  • Hannitized, Proofs obsession

    Global warming has predictably struck again.

    White said climate change caused by global warming likely is changing ice conditions and adding to the unpredictability.

    Kate White is a civil engineer at the Army Cold Regions Research and
    Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., and one of the nation’s leading
    experts on ice jams.

     

  • Andy

    A mining specialist said it was cause by drill hole flushing, the method of pushing water down oil fills, the oil floats on top making it easier to extract. He explained that they must have over time saturated the area, and normally nature can managed the water table, but not if its already filled.   

Create a SAB Readerblog


Recent Comments

Powered by Disqus