Weirdness in Dixie

Regarding the birds, Im in the SF area in Cali, and all but a couple birds have disappeared here. 1 big bag birdseed + our foodscraps lasts about a month or so feeding our backyard birds, year round. We haven't had to buy ANY in months. Very weird.. And the raccoons n opossum have doubled, and seem half starved. Its been cold, and the air is EERILY still.. Oh, plus the extra quakes... whee! Maybe someone could cross ref the backwards birds spots on a map, maybe it'll correlate w/ the magnetic shift line-?

reply to post by mc_squared

Well Redneck, nice to see you're back on the "global warming = religion...blah blah" bandwagon. A bit ironic seeing as how you seemed to completely bail on our scientific debate after I debunked your numbers don't lie thread, but whatever...

I never got off that particular bandwagon, so I fail to see how I could get back on it.

It is becoming clear the more I research that the extreme weather may be directly tied to the slowing/stopping of the Gulf Loop. Apparently the weather systems are moving more southward than normal because the normal high pressures from the Gulf of Mexico are not as strong as normal. This Gulf Loop demise can be attributed to the amount of oil that was dumped into the Gulf during the Deepwater Horizon disaster. No CO2 needed.

I have no idea why the birds are still here, though. I'd love to hear you tie that one to CO2...

I must admit you brought up some interesting points during that last debate, but in the end it appeared to me to be a draw. I stopped posting because of some outside requirements on my time, and I must admit, because I got pretty tired of trying to explain introductory geometry.

I do have a life outside debunking AGW, you know...

There's your Alabama immersed in a sea of deep blue. Meanwhile notice that GIANT "Crimson Tide"

over the Arctic?

Well, I appreciate the reference to the greatest football team of all time.

I do have to point out, however (here we go with geometry again!) that in order to represent the surface of a sphere on a plane, the northern and southern areas are stretched quite drastically. As "giant" as that area appears, it is due in large part to this stretching of the map to force it into a 2D plane shape. And as amazing as this sounds, while heat does rise, "North" is not the same as "up"... there is no reason to believe that global heat retention would congregate at the North Pole.

That last statement may seem disingenuous, but it makes a valid point. To date, no one has explained to me satisfactorily why the Arctic would be more affected by a planetary warming than other areas. for example, another page from your link on the "Arctic Heat Sink" makes the following statement:

The Arctic plays a key role in the earth's heat balance by acting as a "heat sink." The global earth-atmosphere system gains heat from incoming solar radiation, and returns heat to space by thermal radiation. Most of the heat gain occurs in low latitudes, and this gain is balanced (on average) by heat loss that takes place at latitudes north and south of about 40 degrees. Therefore the Arctic is said to act as a "heat sink" for energy that is transported from lower latitudes by ocean currents and by atmospheric circulation systems.

Heat is transported to the Arctic primarily in the following ways:

• Sensible heat is transported poleward during the exchange of air masses from the tropics to the middle and high latitudes. This transfer of heat is largely accomplished by cyclones.
  
• As storms travel poleward, some of the water vapor condenses as clouds, thereby releasing latent heat.
  
• Ocean currents bring heat from the tropics to the the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean and into the Arctic.

BBCode formatting mine to match original

Now, exactly how is it that heat is being transferred by cyclonic activity when such activity occurs primarily in the warmer tropical and semi-tropical areas? Cyclones are driven by heat and cannot exist in colder areas where there is not enough latent heat to drive them. Also, how is it that these pole-bound storms are transferring heat when observations are that storms have been moving southward away from the polar regions?

Yet, your entire post is based on the assumption that this is happening.

No, the only reasonable explanation for the discrepancy in the Arctic temperatures is a localized phenomenon that no one seem to be interested in discovering. Instead, the same old cries of "evil CO2" abound and theories are proposed to explain how CO2 must be driving the phenomena, despite logical reasoning that says the opposite. And in the case of this thread, I care not about what some politician has paid 'scientists' to say, nor what some fanatic is trying to push as an agenda loosely disguised as science... I care about what is actually happening and discovering the true cause behind the phenomena.

And of course, your proposal says nothing about the fact that migratory patterns have apparently shifted, and in the opposite direction from what would be expected by the shift in weather patterns. I think the posters in this thread have shed a tremendous amount of light on the problem, light that I am grateful to all of them for.

Yeah, sounds a little 'fanatic' to me. Sorry. Now can we get back to bird migration patterns versus extreme weather?

TheRedneck

Originally posted by JohnnyR

Also for anyone with iced up driveways and sidewalks, go grab some rock salt and spread it over the ice. Helps melt the ice, and saves you from slipping on your back side.

Be safe everyone and please be careful driving!!!

I second that. I'm a little too used to the snow, and took off down our back stairs yesterday, and did a face plant on the only part of the cement that didn't have snow. Ouch. Knocked (shattered) out my front tooth, and made a general mess of myself. Replacing that tooth is going to cost big.

If you don't have rock salt, even table salt helps. Be more careful than I was.

Check this out:
www.youtube.com...
Piers Corbyn Returns: The Cold Truth of What is to Come in 2011

Also if you check the scientific forums the North Atlantic Current has been interupted. Which caused the shift of the gulf stream and is why there are colder than normal temps in U.S. and Europe.
Also cause of flooding in the southern hemisphere. Wait till summer. Watch out for floods. I'm from Bama too.

reply to post by TheRedneck

I do have a life outside debunking AGW, you know...

Your "debunkings" generally go like this:

To date, no one has explained to me satisfactorily why the Arctic would be more affected by a planetary warming than other areas.

This is a very typical attitude I see from every climate skeptic across the board: "I don't understand it - therefore it is wrong."

Ok so nobody's explained it to you "satisfactorily", so it must be our fault I guess. Well there are many reasons why the Arctic warms faster:

First and foremost is Ice-Albedo feedback. This should be self-explanatory. If it's not then try using this interwebs thing - I'm not wasting any more time doing people's homework for them when they're obviously not going to listen anyway.

Second is this:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/8cebf7979d92.gif[/atsimg]

There is simply less troposphere at the poles than at the equator. So just like heating up a cup of water versus a bathtub - if you have less of something, it will warm up faster.

Third reason is the fact that low latitudes have much more open water than the Arctic. So a lot of heat goes into evaporation rather than directly warming the surface and the air (this is also an offshoot of why the Arctic is warming faster than the Antarctic - i.e. more heat going directly into the oceans in the Southern hemisphere).

The role of storms and cyclones follows from that. They pick this heat up out of the ocean and literally carry it to higher latitudes. And if you think hurricanes can't penetrate into northern climates, then you might want to explain that to the people of Newfoundland. Just because a storm is no longer feeding off of warm tropical waters doesn't mean it suddenly drops dead and dissipates on the spot.



And by the way, this "Arctic Heat Sink" link - which is apparently wrong because you don't get how it works - isn't even referring to global warming. It's just describing how circulation processes work in general. By that I mean in any case, not just global warming. There's nothing in there that (explicitly) says anything about why the Arctic warms faster under an AGW scenario.

Really all that link is describing is the 2nd Law of TD in action. Tropics are hot, poles are cold - the Earth is not an isolated system so it's not going to completely balance out - but it is going to do what it can wherever possible. And since this is all happening because the middle is already saturated with too much energy, it makes perfect sense that the more you add to it, the more pressure gets leveraged out the sides.

So if you want a different model on why the Arctic warms faster under global warming - maybe try a whoopie cushion, I dunno.

But like I was saying, all that link does is reframe the completely general concepts of atmospheric and oceanic circulation from the perspective of heat transfer to the Arctic. Without these mitigating factors the tropics would actually be even warmer, and the poles colder (based on the amount of local albedo/insolation they receive) than what they are observed to be.

So I bet you're kind of regretting putting the little eye-rolling guy at the end of this sentence huh:

Yet, your entire post is based on the assumption that this is happening.

Um...yeah...this *cough* "assumption" is kind of verified by what IS actually happening every day.



...
So here's my point:

I wouldn't have even bothered with this thread if it wasn't for the religion comment. So please just give it a rest. Just because there are elements to this subject that YOU don't understand doesn't mean anyone who feels otherwise is automatically some brainwashed ideologue by default. Maybe the problem is actually just your lack of understanding? There's nothing wrong with being a skeptic and asking questions - but you're using your own ignorance as a platform to label others religiously indoctrinated. You see the irony?

Because when you're so quick to tear down something you don't understand - all that does is show how fearful you are of it. And you know who else does that: Creationists. Religious Zealots. Flat-Earthers. Anyone who is so afraid of being wrong that they would rather shelter themselves in complete utter ignorance than face this possibility.

Meanwhile I have tried to show you guys over and over again that this is the chink in your armor that the denial industry (and yes, it exists) is completely exploiting. You are laughing so hard to yourselves about how gullible all the warmists are because they'll believe anything they read, you don't understand how much the denialists are completely exploiting the fact that you don't.

They are using your inherent skepticism to manufacture doubt. I already showed you the leaked memos that stated this as their goal. And they do it by counting on the fact that a lot of elements of climate science are quite complicated, so they know people will gravitate towards easy but wrong answers instead. That's why the so-called debate is flooded with all these "carbon lags temp" and "CO2 is only 0.035% of the atmosphere" memes, because they know most people won't bother learning what a feedback is, or why 99% of the atmosphere is irrelevant to this discussion.

Same goes for the idea that global warming can cause regional coolings. Skeptics just typically laugh it off and roll their eyes at how absurd it all sounds, instead of actually opening their minds and asking how.

Same thing happened in flat-Earth days too.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
And of course, your proposal says nothing about the fact that migratory patterns have apparently shifted, and in the opposite direction from what would be expected by the shift in weather patterns.

My "proposal" was just to show you how wrong you were in trying to belittle another member for suggesting global warming can make it colder in Alabama. But if you want to bring the birds into it fine - here you go:

Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change

That's a paper that evaluates whether responses in nature have correlated to an overall global warming trend. You need a subscription to read it, but the details are divulged here.

It says stuff like this:

The effects on living things include earlier leafing of trees and plants over many regions; movements of species to higher latitudes and altitudes in the northern hemisphere; changes in bird migrations in Europe, North America and Australia;

Among living creatures inhabiting such systems, 90% of changes are consistent with warming. The researchers say it is unlikely that any force but human-influenced climate change could be driving all this; factors like deforestation or natural climate variations could not explain it.

So basically it says that animals are moving north (aka not migrating as far south as they used to). This could even help explain why birds and fish are suddenly dying off in certain places. They have been gradually migrating northward in response to the gradual warming trend. But the sudden cold blast from the Arctic Oscillation has caught them off-guard.

This is all once again still completely in line with the details of global warming/climate change:
Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried?

That is - to those who actually have the patience to read the fineprint, instead of automatically roll their eyes and laugh it all away because it goes against their own ideologies.

reply to post by bsbray11


Bleh. I really don't want to get sucked into another off-topic debate...but don't know how I'm supposed to just let blatant misinformation sit there, either.

1. No, rainforest destruction doesn't contribute "MUCH greater" amounts of CO2 than industrial sources. It accounts for somewhere between 25 percent to 12 percent, depending on who you ask.

2. Having said that - it is of course still a very important factor nonetheless, which is why the statement "nobody cares about that" is way off. The IPCC has an entire chapter dedicated to it: IPCC AR4 WGIII Chapter 9: Forestry

3. Global warming itself has been contributing to deforestation through increasing wildfires. The Amazon for example has suffered three major "100 year droughts" in just over the last 10 years. Those years were 1998, 2005 & 2010. Those also happen to be the three warmest years on record.



Just because government officials might be exploiting the problem doesn't make the problem any less real. In fact it only makes it that much more important. The question of how much of an effect CO2 has on climate is a question of physics, not politics. So turning a blind eye to it because Al Gore is fat and lives in a big house isn't going to change anything.

There are plenty of people trying to propose real, innovative solutions to global warming. The problem is nobody wants to listen to them because they are being painted as "crazy religious eco-nazis" by the right-wing oil lobby. And nobody around here seems to notice because they're all too busy falling for this exact shtick. Here's a thread I started about fighting global warming without carbon taxes. Look at all the amazing intelligent discourse that generated.

Every "real" solution to global warming involves first and foremost eliminating apathy. But how are you supposed to do that when apathy is apparently the only thing anyone actually cares about. I can never get over seeing this attitude on a conspiracy website of all places.

Everybody around here just bitches and complains about how much TPTB control their lives. But now that we have this big urgent issue which has real solutions that completely overlap with the concept of freeing ourselves from TPTB - everybody just rejects it and calls it a hoax and then claims they'll start caring once TPTB spoonfeed them a "real" solution.

It never ceases to amaze me how utterly backwards people around here still have it.

reply to post by mc_squared

Your "debunkings" generally go like this:

Yes, they do. That is, I ask questions to attempt to understand this so-called science behind the theory. I then examine those answers and, based on their perceived veracity, I either accept the explanation, ask more questions, or explain how the answers are contrary to science.

That is called 'investigation'. It is the driving force behind true science.

Now, if you are complaining that I do not accept your findings without question, please, feel free to complain. That is apparently what you are doing.

In this case, I pointed out a phenomenon that I was unable to explain, in an attempt to further understand if it was indeed that unusual, how far-reaching it was, and what a possible cause could be. When someone posted that the cold weather was due to Global Warming, I was reminded of a preacher... you know, the ones who turn every happenstance into some religious lesson or warning of impending doom? The ones that are consistently complained about on ATS? The ones who ignore everything else in favor of their religious interpretations, to the point that they would have explained the appearance of the birds in an unusually cold winter as a sign of God's mercy. In that respect, to interject Global Warming into every single investigation is indeed synonymous with religious fervor. Thus, I characterized it as I did... a religion.

The proof lies in your own posts. One mention that there may be another cause, one insinuation that Global Warming is not the end-all-be-all of any investigation, one blasphemous statement against Global Warming is all that is needed for the righteous to rise in defense of the 'truth'... sort of like Westgate Baptist Church rises to protest at the slightest hint of impropriety in the 'non-believers'.

If you want me to stop considering it a religion, there is a sure way to accomplish that. Stop acting like it is a religion. There are some recent discoveries that I will be starting another thread on concerning Global Warming inconsistencies, and I hereby invite you specifically to address them in that thread. Again, I have plenty to do, so I make no promise on when I will be able to get that thread together.

I do want to thank you, however, for keeping this thread on the front page for a few more days. The more people notice it, the more we might come up with an actual cause and effect for the observation I made.

Anyone have any more info on what might be actually going on with the birds?

TheRedneck

While I can't add to why the birds are acting odd, I have found some resources on migration paths and observations.

First the migration flyways can be found here: www.birdnature.com...

There are four (4) major North American flyways that have been named the Atlantic, the Mississippi, the Central and the Pacific Flyways. Except along the coasts, the flyway boundaries are not always sharply defined and both in the northern breeding, and the southern wintering, grounds there is more or less overlapping. As a matter of fact, in the region of Panama, parts of all four flyways merge into one.

Second, the spring and fall migration timetables. On this page you can pull data based on location and time (spring or fall) www.birdnature.com...

This timetable is only for the Eastern US states of Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Arrival Date is an approximation date of when the migrating bird can first be seen while the Departure Date is an approximation of the latest date the bird can be seen. Some departure dates are missing on the Timetables, because the migratory bird may be a "Summer Resident" or a "Winter Resident". A good field guide will help in determining resident birds and migratory birds that are resident throughout a period of time.

Then this morning I found this website, ebird.org...
by clicking on the view/explore data tab you can search for different species, locations and time. The data comes from the website members adding what they have observed.

I hope this helps on figuring out if the birds we are seeing are truly out of place.

OiO